A new op-ed in the Bangor Daily News by a Maine small business owner explains  how Donald Trump’s chaotic pandemic response has failed small businesses like his.

During this crisis, small businesses across the country have struggled to get by, and more than 100,000 have been forced to close their doors permanently. Susan Collins’ Paycheck Protection Program hasn’t done enough to help struggling small businesses access relief, but it has put millions of dollars in the pockets of large, publicly traded companies and businesses with close ties to Trump.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Bangor Daily News: Crushed by the pandemic, Trump has failed Maine’s small businesses

By: Dan Tremble

May 20, 2020

Key Points:

 

  • Seemingly overnight, life changed — in Bangor, in Maine, and in the entire country — for almost all of us. Only the most essential of businesses were allowed to stay open. An unseen enemy began killing thousands of Americans every single day, leaving people in Bangor and across the country looking for leadership.

 

  • As a small business owner, I’m incredibly grateful not to have had to shut down one of my businesses. That’s likely simply because of the nature of my business — a convenience store — and not because of any skill set or good fortune of mine. Of course I’ve had to scale back and make dramatic changes — cut hours for some employees, limit capacity in the store — but all in all, I’ve been far better off than many other small business owners here in Bangor.
     
  • I’ve heard from other business owners across the state who’ve told me that they’re contemplating the most horrible decision of all: whether or not to close down their business entirely. They know that they — and the Mainers they employ — have to put food on the table for their families and pay their electricity bills, but what else are they supposed to do if not a single dollar is coming in?
     
  • And the suffering that millions of small business owners are facing across the country can also still be alleviated — but we need help from the federal government that they seem unwilling to offer.
     
  • But now — during this pandemic, with families lining up for nutritional assistance and many small businesses still left in the lurch — it’s become even clearer that Washington has failed us. It doesn’t have to be this way.
     
  • As soon as it became clear that Maine’s small business owners like myself were going to be crushed by the economic devastation of this pandemic, Joe Biden put out a detailed plan on how he would be giving us the lifelines we need right now — lifelines like increasing the capacity of the Small Business Administration with the extra funding it desperately needs right now, and making 100 percent sure with proper oversight that taxpayer money gets in the right hands, not the hands of rich Wall Street executives.
     
  • There are over 145,000 small businesses in Maine. Behind each of these businesses is an owner and a few employees. Behind each of these businesses, there are families that depend on the income and customers that depend on the products. Entire lives and livelihoods depend on each and every one of these 145,000 small businesses. With Biden, we will get a leader that doesn’t forget about a single one of us.

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