The budget for the Small Business Administration would authorize the agency to provide $28 billion of loan guarantees to small businesses next fiscal year, under a budget proposal the Bush administration released Monday.
The amount is unchanged from what the agency is authorized to guarantee in the current fiscal year, which will end Sept. 30. As in this year's budget, next year's would provide funding to guarantee $17.5 billion of 7(a) loans and $7.5 billion of certified development company or 504 loans. Another $3 billion would support the agency's Small Business Investment program.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2007, the SBA approved a record 110,275 7(a) and 504 loans worth $20.6 billion.
The proposal includes $657 million of new budget authority, a 15.5% increase from the current level. Including carryover funds for disaster lending and other revenue, the total spending package would be $819 million.
In a press release, Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Chairman John F. Kerry, D-Mass., expressed frustration that the budget did not include additional funding authority for the SBA's two largest loan programs. During the current credit crisis "we need to do everything we can to increase these programs."
The budget also proposes eliminating the congressional subsidy on the agency's microlending program and making it self-financing.
