‘Can You Please Give Me Some Numbers?’: Mazie Hirono Grills Loeffler About SBA Staff Reductions

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During Wednesday’s Senate Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) questioned SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler about staff reductions.

Transcript

00:00and I will now recognize Senator Hirono for five minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

00:05The SBA is one of the smallest administrative agencies. Isn't that the

00:10case? Yes, that's true. So since this administration took office in January, how

00:18many people have either been fired or left SBA? Senator, I'm very pleased to say

00:24that we are streamlining and unifying this agency. How many people have left or

00:29resigned? We're taking it back to the size that it was during the first Trump

00:33administration. The agency had doubled in size and headcount during COVID and yet

00:3890% of the staff was working from home. And so what we found... Can you please give me some numbers,

00:46Madam? Yes, Senator. So currently we're looking at approximately 43% staff reduction,

00:52which brings us back to the size that the agency was during the first Trump administration.

00:57I'm just getting percentages. I'd really like to know the numbers that you're talking about.

01:03So right now we're looking at roughly 2,700 staff reductions.

01:082,700. So it is really a very small agency and you're about to embark on the small manufacturers'

01:16effort and that's going to take staffing. And in fact, isn't it the plan to further reduce

01:22your employee base to... You're cutting another 43% from the SBA personnel?

01:32Well, Senator, I've been in the job about three months. We'll continue to evaluate the agency,

01:38but the beauty of this agency is it is a public-private partnership with our lenders,

01:44over 1,000 lenders across the country that deliver our loans. So it's a very scalable agency and it had

01:51doubled during COVID. We no longer are running COVID origination loan programs. So the staffing,

01:56we had customer service representatives that were costing us roughly 50 million a year.

02:02Madam Administrator, the point I am making is that if any of the initiatives that you are

02:09announcing will take personnel, and at the same time as you're pursuing these initiatives and

02:16looking at your 7A loan program, and you have a president who wants to shove the student loan

02:23program, which is over a trillion dollars in student loans, 43 million people, borrowers into your small

02:33shop, it's kind of mind-boggling to think that you're going to be able to do all this. Another question,

02:39is it your testimony that the confusion surrounding President Trump's on again, off again tariff

02:48decisions is going to help small businesses? Is that your testimony? Yes, Senators. President Trump

02:55is the first president to fight for small businesses for Main Street. So when I hear from small businesses in

03:01my community that it is because of the tariffs that there's so much uncertainty in their businesses that

03:07they believe that they're actually going to get hurt. You have Walmart saying that they're going to need

03:11to charge higher prices because of the negative impact of these tariffs. They're deluding themselves

03:20that actually that President Trump's on again, off again tariff decisions are actually going to help them.

03:26So all these small businesses contacting us to say that they're actually being hurt, they're deluding

03:31themselves. Is that your view? Senator, it's not to overlook. There could be short-term impacts. The

03:38biggest change with tariffs is we're going to be able to compete on a level playing field based on the

03:43400-page document by the U.S. Trade Rep. Sadly, excuse me, President Trump can say all he wants these are

03:50short-term impacts, but that is not the view held by most economists and other people. Senator,

03:58we lost five million jobs across this country. Thank you, Madam Chair. Following out of our manufacturing. Thank you.

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