During his State of the Union address, President Biden said he wants to double down on “prosecuting criminals who stole relief money meant to keep workers and small businesses afloat during the pandemic.”
“That’s a noble sentiment,” said Freedom Foundation Policy Director Max Nelsen. “Which is why the Freedom Foundation last year released a report that prompted a congressional inquiry by detailing how labor unions and affiliated entities received more than $36 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to which they were not entitled and which was intended for those very workers and small businesses with whom the president claims to empathize.”
As many as 223 forgivable loans totaling $36.1 million were provided to labor unions and related organizations that were statutorily ineligible for the funds. Teachers’ unions, government employees’ unions and AFL-CIO advocacy organizations were among the most prominent beneficiaries of the relief funds.
Nelsen continued, “Last April, Republican leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee, the Small Business Committee, the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee, and the Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations Subcommittee issued a joint statement and a letter to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which administered the PPP, demanding answers.”
In response, SBA officials pleaded ignorance of the unions’ wrongdoing, though internal communications obtained by the Freedom Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act show that high-ranking SBA officials were well aware of the Freedom Foundation’s report at the time they replied to Congress.
In his address, Biden proclaimed, “(T)he watchdogs are back,” while vowing to “triple our anti-fraud strike forces going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates stealing billions of dollars from the American people.”
“If the president is serious”, concluded Nelsen, “a great place to start would be investigating and prosecuting the unions that stole tens of millions of dollars from American taxpayers and small businesses and have yet to be held to account.”
