�������ýҕ�l

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will appear by videoconference before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday to testify on how they are handling $500 billion in emergency lending programs. Congress made those funds available to the Treasury through the $2 trillion economic-relief package that President Trump signed into law in March. (Timiraos and Davidson, 5/19)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will likely come under tough questioning from senators Tuesday about a small business lending program included in the government’s $2 trillion relief package. Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Payroll Protection Program, which initially provided $349 billion in forgivable loans to small companies but has been plagued by a host of problems. (Rugaber and Crutsinger, 5/19)

The Treasury Department has so far disbursed only $37.5 billion of the $500 billion carved out in the CARES Act to be used for emergency lending to businesses and state and local governments, according to the report from the Congressional Oversight Commission. The $37.5 billion was put toward purchasing corporate debt, which will largely benefit big companies. Of the $500 billion total, $29 billion is available for airlines and $17 billion is available for businesses "critical to maintaining national security," according to the report. No loans have been doled out from that reserved pot of money, nor has any public documentation been released on who the money is going to, the report said. (Haslett, 5/18)

The Treasury Department said Monday that it is starting to deliver nearly 4 million coronavirus relief payments to taxpayers via prepaid debit card, rather than paper check. The announcement comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had indicated that the department planned to get some people their payments by sending them debit cards, in an effort to help get people their payments faster. "Prepaid debit cards are secure, easy to use, and allow us to deliver Americans their money quickly,” Mnuchin said in a news release Monday. “Recipients can immediately activate and use the cards safely.” (Jagoda, 5/18)

A small, overlooked federal agency is shouldering a massive relief effort for the nation’s small businesses and their workers left reeling by the pandemic. The Small Business Administration has committed to auditing every sizable emergency loan it approves. But six weeks after the $600 billion-plus program was launched, the agency has yet to make public the recipients of taxpayer aid. (Gordon, 5/19)

A prolonged recession is the biggest worry for company executives as they contemplate the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. But there's plenty more keeping them awake at night. Executives whose job it is to identify risks are also concerned about a related surge in bankruptcies, high levels of youth unemployment and increased cyber attacks arising from a shift to remote working, according to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group. (Ziady, 5/19)

Maine small businesses are running short on cash as problems including supply chain disruptions remain an issue as the economy starts to reopen, according to a survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. (Piper, 5/19)

Businesses that received emergency loans from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) face a Monday deadline of whether to keep the money, and all the restrictions that come with it. The main concern among companies is that the Treasury Department's shifting terms for forgiving the loans might leave them high and dry. Others are worried they will face blowback, from workers or the general public, for having taken the loans in the first place. (Elis, 5/18)

Democrats are ratcheting up their coronavirus attacks on Mitch McConnell. One year into their campaign that portrays McConnell as the steward of a “legislative graveyard,” Senate Democrats are edging closer to suggesting the Republican majority is presiding over an actual one during the pandemic. Frustrated over McConnell’s remarks that he’s not yet feeling the “urgency” to immediately tackle a fifth congressional response to the coronavirus, Democrats are resorting to the time-honored minority tactic of trying to shame the Senate majority leader into moving forward. (Everett, 5/18)