Originally Posted by BobC
There have already been people convicted of abusing the PPP program and now facing/serving prison time, and will likely be more to come. And for a lot of you with criticisms and complaints about what was and wasn't done, isn't it wonderful how 20/20 hindsight is always so much clearer than facing the unknown future in a totally unprecedented worldwide situation that descended upon all of us so fast, it made it seem like it all happened virtually overnight.
The main goal was to keep the U.S. economy going despite the pandemic, and in reality, based on where we are today and after all the problems and issues that have occurred since this all began (as many of you naysayers are so dutifully pointing out), we sure as heck could be in a lot worse shape.
Initially the loans were to try and keep as many as possible people working, getting paid, and then spending their money so the economy wouldn't falter. Not knowing how things would turn out, both government and businesses were guessing as to who may or may not need the stimulus money. So if it ended up that some businesses got PPP loans they ultimately seemed to not need, the government wanted them to have it anyway so they'd continue to spend the money on whatever, even if it ended up being on baseball cards. That's the only way to keep the economy going, by having people continue to spend money. Because of the quarantines and shutdowns, the government knew certain industries, jobs, and businesses where going to get whacked more than others, and there was no way they'd be contributing to the economy like they had been. In which case, you would expect the government to be praying these more fortunate people and businesses not feeling the pressure of the pandemic as much, would spend even more of the stimulus money they were getting to hopefully make up for lost economic activity of the unfortunate businesses and people that did get whacked because of Covid.
It was a deliberate and calculated move by the government to give businesses this extra money to spend. I don't know how many of you realized that when the PPP loan forgiveness program was first put into operation, the IRS advised businesses that according to then current tax laws, none of those payroll or other expenses deemed as being paid by the PPP loan proceeds, and then forgiven, would be tax deductible. The government specifically made sure to enact and have signed into law, new legislation so that those forgiven expenses would absolutely be tax deductible. Had the government not done this, businesses and business owners would have been forced to not spend a significant amount of the PPP loan stimulus money they received, and instead hold on to it in contemplation of sending it right back to the government as taxes. And that would have succeeded in significantly crippling the government's main reason for having given out the PPP money in the first place, to stimulate the economy. Why do you think all these various payments, loans, and programs were always referred to as "stimulus" money.
So for those people/businesses possibly being accused of not being of high moral or ethical character for having taken PPP loan money they were eligible for (or any other stimulus moneys for that matter) that it turned out they may not have needed to survive the pandemic after all, and then had the loan forgiven, take heart. You are not bad at all. In fact, the government was totally behind in encouraging and aiding everyone to getting as much stimulus money and aid as they could, so they in turn could spend as much as possible to keep the U.S. economy flowing.
We're still not out of this Covid pandemic yet either. So for all you critics against those who legitimately got and are spending their stimulus money, quit complaining and apparently advocating to potentially damage our economy instead. Maybe you should all take a page out of the old carpenter's handbook, but instead of remembering to measure twice and then cut once, you should all think twice, before speaking even once.
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