A Republican member of Congress, Representative María Elvira Salazar of Florida, faced corrupt attacks on Twitter because she would take credit Friday for part of the U.S. rescue plan, the pandemic bill she voted against.
A Republican senator, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, had been accurately criticized two days earlier on similar grounds. But the criticism of Salazar is inaccurate.
Here are the facts.
On Friday, the day after President Joe Biden signed the $ 1.9 billion US rescue plan into law, Salazar tweeted the word “#BREAK” with siren images around it, added: “So proud to announce that the Biden administration has just implemented my dual COVID relief bill as part of the @SBBAgov policy!”
Salazar, a first-year member of the House, included a link and an image explaining that she was talking about the recently announced decision by the Biden government to give small businesses more time to repay the disaster loans from economic injuries. .
Many commentators have assumed that Salazar applauded part of the U.S. rescue plan. But she was not.
Facts first: Salazar did not obtain credit for any part of the U.S. rescue plan. The loan policy she applauded was rather adopted by the small business administration separate from the US rescue plan. Salazar and a Democratic colleague, Representative Sharice Davids of Kansas, proposed a very similar lending policy in a account presented them in early March. This Salazar-Davids bill is what Salazar was referring to when she tweeted that the Biden government had introduced ‘my dual bill on COVID relief’.
A White House official, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Bharat Ramamurti, tweeted Sunday to try to correct the inaccurate criticism of Salazar.
‘I saw confusion about this. SBA announced on Friday – apart from the American Rescue Bill – that 3M + businesses will have EIDL loan payments postponed for an extra year. We are pleased to see dual support for these and other changes we have made to help small businesses, ‘Ramamurti said.
The Small Business Administration has acted “under its own authority” in consultation with the Biden-Harris team to bring about the policy change – not under the US bailout plan, a small business administration spokesman said Monday on condition of anonymity.
Salazar can be accurately criticized for celebrating this one element of Covid relief after rejecting a wide variety of other emergency relief policies in the U.S. rescue plan. And critics could accurately point out that the U.S. bailout plan she opposed included billions in additional funding for loans and grants for small businesses.
But much of the criticism of Salazar’s tweet was inaccurate. Critics with six-or-seven figures Twitter followers – including California Democrats Rep. Ted Lieu; Fred Wellman, executive director of the Lincoln Project, the conservative group that campaigned against President Donald Trump; songwriter and activist Holly Figueroa O’Reilly; Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Progressive political website Daily Food; a journalist Soledad O’Brien – wrongly claims that Salazar is praising a bill she voted against.
Moulitsas, O’Brien and Welman immediately posted corrections after CNN reached out to them to explain that it was inaccurate. Lieu stood by his tweet and said in a message to CNN that he thinks the US rescue plan, and the provisions it contains to strengthen the emergency lending program, ‘gave SBA confidence to extend the extension period’.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo tweeted a question on Sunday in response to Salazar’s tweet praising the loan policy, ask on Twitter why she voted against the relief bill. On Monday he tweeted that Salazar was correct that the loan policy is separate from the account for relief.)
It is not clear what role Salazar, Davids or their bill’s co-sponsors played in the Biden government’s decision. But their bill did precede the administration’s announcement.
On March 3, Salazar and Davids submitted a proposal to the House to extend the expiration date for the payment of interest and interest on economic loans to economic damage – to two years from the previous year. The loans, totaling more than $ 200 billion, are aimed at small businesses and non-profits that have suffered a temporary loss due to the pandemic.
The Small Business Administration issued a press release on Friday, just over an hour before Salazar’s festive tweet, saying that the expiration date for the first payment would be extended – up to two years for all disaster loans made to small businesses in 2020 and up to 18 months for all such loans made in 2021.