Treasury Secretary Mnuchin on the Paycheck Protection Program

Steve Mnuchin

Here are the latest details on what the Trump Administration is promoting as a Paycheck Protection bailout program. Of course, most of this forgotten loan program will be monetized by the Federal Reserve, which will mean even more upward pressure on prices after the lockdown is over.

The below was sent to me by the Treasury Department:

Today, Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin joined "Squawk on the Street" on CNBC to discuss the Paycheck Protection Program that provides fast, direct relief for small businesses and their employees. 

• On Implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program: "This program is going to be up and running on Friday. I'm pleased that, working with the SBA, we’re going to be able to deliver it."
  • "The Paycheck Protection Program: you can take out a loan for up to eight weeks of payroll, as well as overhead, you hire the people back. As long as you hire the people back, the loan is forgiven."
  • "I would encourage every small business go to Treasury.gov. There's a red banner on the top. Click on it, you will get the information. And you can go to any SBA lender, you can go to any FDIC insured bank and any credit union, call your lender, see if they participate."
  • "I very much want people to sign up for this. It's a great way to hire people back and make sure you're getting paid. If you have people at work, this will cover about 50% of the payroll of the private enterprises."
• On Future Financial Support from Congress: "One of the things I’ve heard is the small business program will be so popular that we're going to run out of our $350 billion. If that's the case, I can assure you that will be the top of the list for me to go back to Congress on. It has huge bipartisan support and we want to protect small business." 
• On President's Trump Approach to Fighting the Coronavirus: "The President has been very clear. He's prepared to do whatever needs to be done to make sure American workers and American business are protected. This is a unique situation, an issue because of a medical issue. We're fighting a war on this virus--which we will win--we have shut down parts of the economy. The President is determined that we will protect American workers, American business."

-RW