Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX) proposed legislation on Wednesday that would extend the statute of limitations to catch the potentially millions of individuals who took advantage of coronavirus pandemic-era aid.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) made shockwaves after it released a report that found the Biden-era Small Business Administration Inspector General (SBA IG) did not fully investigate roughly two to three million referrals because it did not have enough information or correct information in its referrals.
Ernst, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship chair, and Williams introduced the SBA Fraud Enforcement Extension Act to ensure that those who stole pandemic-era aid will be held accountable.
The legislation would extend the statute of limitations to ten years for fraud surrounding the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) coronavirus relief programs. Congress passed similar legislation in 2022 to ensure that the statute of limitations for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) were extended to ten years.
While many criminals enjoyed their ill-gotten gains from these coronavirus pandemic-era programs, thousands of small businesses in Iowa, Texas, and throughout the country were left in the lurch as the RRF ran out of funding.
Business Insider has reported on how celebrities received taxpayer dollars through the SVOG program for private jets, parties, luxury clothes, and bonuses.
Ernst’s office has catalogued many of the ways that coronavirus aid had been abused:
While SBA ran the relief programs on a “first come, first serve” basis, the money ran out quickly, and many qualifying businesses were turned away as felons, gang members, and drug traffickers raked in cash. Some swindlers uploaded pictures of Barbie dolls as photo identification on SBA loan applications that were approved.
One alleged fraudster took home $8 million while nearly 2,000 struggling restaurants in Iowa were left empty-handed. Ernst detailed this in her report titled Small Business COVID-19 Fraud: Three Years Later State of Play – where she outlined the Biden SBA’s effort to discount the full extent of fraud and cast doubt on the legitimate estimates made by expert investigators.
DOGE recently revealed that $312 million in coronavirus aid went to children under 11 years old. Ernst said that this fraud was just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
