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Small Business Legislation Update from the SBA 504 Experts . . .

By
Mortgage and Lending with Mercantile Capital Corporation

I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open for news about HR 5297 now that Congress is back in session, and have received word that the bill made it through cloture today.  The cloture vote passed 61 to 37.

This means there’s less than 30 hours left to finish debating it before the final bill is voted on. Once passed (assuming it is), the House Speaker has said she’ll put it up to a simple up/down vote (which we’ll need your Representative to support as well).   Assuming passage there (identical to Senate bill), it’ll go to the President for his signature, unless the House changes anything.  If they do, then it would go to reconciliation and, once the sausage is made, finally get to President Obama. Realistically speaking, there isn’t much time left in this Congress to do reconciliation . . . which is why the up/down vote will likely take place. This could become law within a few weeks.

That said, we need to keep the heat on our elected officials if we hope to see this important legislation put into action. I humbly ask that you contact your elected officials in the Senate and the House to support this bill (and the up/down vote in the House). Just go here and here — it’ll only take a few seconds out of your day to ask for their support of HR 5297.

Again, the reason you should do this is there are important provisions in this bill that will benefit small businesses (especially those who have taken or will take advantage of the SBA 504 loan program). Among other things, the most important impact it will have is that it will enable owners of small and mid-sized businesses to refinance existing SBA 504 debt, and access the embedded equity in their commercial properties.

This is the surest and most efficient way to get life-giving capital into the hands of business owners because the SBA 504 loan program (aka The SmartChoice Commercial Loan) operates as a zero-subsidy program. It doesn’t cost the taxpayers anything, so this is nothing like previous bailout measures, or TARP-type funds.  I’ve addressed other concerns about HR 5297 in another blog post, which you might find helpful in explaining this piece of legislation to others.

If you have other thoughts or concerns about this bill or anything else Congress is cooking up to help small and mid-sized businesses, please leave a comment below.  And if you think any of this would be helpful for a friend or colleague to read, please don’t hesitate to forward it along.

Dedicated to Your Continued Success,

Chris

P.S. Though we’re following this issue closely, don’t think we’ve taken our eye off the “ball.”  We’re still busier than ever, providing loans for some of America’s amazingly resilient business owners every day.  If you know of someone who ought to contact us about a commercial property loan for their business, call me at 1-866-622-4504 or email me at ChrisHurn@MercantileCC.com.

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