Today Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) issued the following statement in reaction to President Bush's Gulf Coast visit. Kerry is the lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation to overhaul the government's disaster loan program which the Bush Administration has been blocking since September 2005.
"Long term recovery for the Gulf Coast requires a whole lot more than 18 months of empty promises. Businesses that were once the heart of the Gulf Coast economy are now hanging on by a thread. Yet the bipartisan proposals in Congress to get these businesses back up and running have been blocked by the Bush Administration at every turn. On his last visit to the Gulf Coast, the President predicted a bright future for the region's entrepreneurs. Yet in the six months since that visit, nothing's changed. While the Go Zone legislation represented a good first step, we still need fundamental reform of the government's disaster loan program to permanently remove delays and red tape that have prevented businesses from getting timely financial assistance," said Kerry, Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2007 (S. 163) would:
"Long term recovery for the Gulf Coast requires a whole lot more than 18 months of empty promises. Businesses that were once the heart of the Gulf Coast economy are now hanging on by a thread. Yet the bipartisan proposals in Congress to get these businesses back up and running have been blocked by the Bush Administration at every turn. On his last visit to the Gulf Coast, the President predicted a bright future for the region's entrepreneurs. Yet in the six months since that visit, nothing's changed. While the Go Zone legislation represented a good first step, we still need fundamental reform of the government's disaster loan program to permanently remove delays and red tape that have prevented businesses from getting timely financial assistance," said Kerry, Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2007 (S. 163) would: