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On Monday, President Obama told a group of lenders including Augusta banker Dan Blanton that the nation's small businesses need help.
Mr. Blanton, the president and CEO of Georgia Bank & Trust, and 70 other people met with Mr. Obama at the White House to discuss small-business lending issues.
"He is concerned with small-business lending in the country, that banks are not making small-business loans," Mr. Blanton said.
The one-hour meeting, which also included Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, examined how Small Business Administration rules can be streamlined to help banks lend more money to small businesses.
"They tried to come up with some changes to the SBA program that would make it more user-friendly, with less fees and lower interest rates, and make it easier to get an SBA loan approved," he said.
Mr. Obama announced that the federal government "will set aside a certain amount of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds to buy the (SBA) guaranteed loans after the bank makes them," Mr. Blanton said.
This would "entice banks to start banking and have an avenue to sell them (the loans) once they do."
The Small Business Administration is a national program for small-business lending that is guaranteed by the government, he explained.
Mr. Obama also announced tax credits for small businesses.
"I think this is a good plan. Those things coupled together will make some availability of funds available to small-business customers," Mr. Blanton said.
He is the chairman of the America's Community Bankers Council of the American Bankers Association. The council is composed of 100 community bankers nationwide.
"It was a great honor to represent the American Bankers Association in Washington, with a relatively small group of people," Mr. Blanton said.
It was the second time he has met a president. The first was President Eisenhower, who visited Mr. Blanton's church, Reid Memorial Presbyterian, when Mr. Blanton was a boy.
Reach LaTina Emerson at (706) 823-3227 or latina.emerson@augustachronicle.com.
Comments
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What's wrong Karma, hard to find something to vilify here?
More government guarantees for a government loan to help offset a problem precipitated by government guarantees and loans. Why does this look like more of the same of what we have. I'll be glad when O gets to the "tax us out of recession" phase of his plan so he'll have the money to "borrow us out of recession". What a good plan. I'm prepared to be amazed.
We don't need more small businesses, we need more customers with disposable income. That means stop taxing me and my customers into oblivion. And give people an incentive to save their money. When I was growing up, banks paid 5% on savings accounts and nobody played the stock market. Now, after the stock market has crashed, banks pay a third of 1% on savings accounts. This is the way the government manages the economy, keep it floating until it lands back in the government's lap. Broken, broken, broken.
When will Dem and Rep ever see that we are not the ENEMY? watch this film and see who is in control of our destiny. YOU wont be disappointed. Rep and Dem need to come together and throw out the IMF. http://www.obamadeception.net/
Looks like the Dems have really been duped this time. Obama is doing worse than a Republican would have done. Talk about looking out for big business, that seems to be Obama's forte. Dem's Unite. It's time to get a Republican back in office!
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