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the default agency for providing disaster loans to small businesses, homeowners, renters, and organizations. As aresult, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled through the agency to businesses and individuals over the years.

Some SBA programs are effective; others are not. The largest program in SBA’s history, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), has been credited with saving millions of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.’ A conservative Administration would rightly focus on saving small businesses during such a crisis. At the same time, however, various SBA programs have generated waste, fraud, and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.

For example, and more recently, more than $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief was distributed through the SBA.“* The SBA’s EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) Advance program in particular shows the dangers that can come with direct government lending. EIDL Advance provided direct cash grants and loans to small businesses. The SBA Office of Inspector General “identified $78.1 billion in potentially fraudulent EIDL loans and grants paid to ineligible entities,”® which represented more than half of all funds spent through the program. Although PPP worked through private lenders and as a result experienced relatively less fraud than EIDL experienced, it is estimated “that at least 70,000 [PPP] loans were potentially fraudulent.”°

ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CORE FUNCTIONS In 1954, the agency began to execute such core functions as “making and

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guaranteeing loans for small businesses,” “ensuring that small businesses earn a ‘fair proportion’ of government contracts and sales of surplus property,” and “provid[ing] business owners with management and business training.”

In 1970, President Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11518 enhanced the agency’s advocacy role by providing for the “increased representation of the interests of small business concerns before departments and agencies of the United States Government.”® This advocacy role was strengthened with the adoption of the Small Business Amendments of 1974,’ which established the Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and was then reinforced and expanded in 1976 with the creation of the Office of Advocacy, providing additional resources to ensure that small businesses had a voice in the regulatory process.

In 1980, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)"° further strengthened the Office of Advocacy’s role, providing accountability across federal agencies to ensure that they considered the impact of their rulemakings on small businesses. The RFA requires federal agencies “to consider the effects of their regulations on small businesses and other small entities,’" and the Office of Advocacy is charged with ensuring that federal agencies abide by the law and is required to provide an annual report to the President and the Senate and House Committees on Small Business.” In addition, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) of 2016"