Senate Passes Stimulus II (mini TARP) $30B Small Business Tax, Lending Package

From this article, http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2009/03/tax-breaks-in-obamas-15-billion-small.html , got some interesting informaiton including how this program will work. Going to creat some administrative hassles :

The $30 billion lending program would work by creating a fund that directly invests in "smaller" local and community banks (<$10 billion in assets) through purchasing preferred stock, which returns between 1% to 7% in dividends to the government based on how effective their small business lending programs are. For example, a bank that boosts their small business lending by 10% over last year's levels would only have to pay the government a 1% dividend. Whereas banks that do not increase their small business lending, could face a dividend repayment of up to 7%.