Churches and the Paycheck Protection Plan of 2020 (PPP)

Very few churches turned down the PPP money, but they sure shut their doors and service obligations when the state said tattoo parlors and bars were essential but churches weren't. Not taking the name of the Lord in vain has got to be bigger than not cussing and swearing.

https://youtu.be/6NhKH91nvJg Dave Ramsey's view--he feared the rules would be changed

Church, Ministry, and the PPP: Should Churches Take Government Handouts? – Dispensational Publishing

For some churches, paying back PPP loans is better than forgiveness (religionnews.com) Some churches didn't use the loans or gave them back.

Ministries and Churches Receiving More than $1-M in Paycheck Protection Program Funds – MinistryWatch Evangelical churches that received a million or more in PPP

As we merge lanes from pandemic to endemic

From an investment letter: "It is now clear from the data that Sweden, which never shut down other than for the very old and nursing homes, did not do worse than those that did shut down, and their kids got to go to in person school throughout. Florida never fully shut down for long, and reopened quickly relative to the rest of the country. While the mainstream media and the Biden administration blasted DeSantis, reality is, business here reopened fairly quickly for the most part, and recovered quickly, and the health issues, including hospitalization and death, were no worse per capita than CA which shut down completely, and kept kids out of school. It is my view that Fauci and the teachers’ unions did more damage to the country than the pandemic ever did. Many people died of untreated diseases like cancer and heart conditions as a result of the shutdowns. They never counted that. I have a tennis buddy whose prostate cancer spread because he could not get to see a doctor in time to prevent it. The Fauci ordered lockdowns did grave damage to the economy, and led to the $6 trillion of new debt we now have.

Were things left mostly open after the first wave, with certain restrictions and certain rules, and personal choice as to exposure, once the vaccines were available, it is far from clear there would have been a much worse Covid outcome based on the Swedish and Florida experience, when you take all the collateral damage of closure into account. Meantime the increased government spending is a disaster, and has created what many of us long predicted-inflation running out of control. The topper was the Rescue Plan in March 2021 for which there was no need other than for the money to be used to bail out Dem state and city governments which were in massive debt, and to illegally redirect billions to teach CRT. Meantime hundreds of billions are believed to have been stolen through fraud in the unemployment payments and PPP. If there had been a limited PPP, and money strictly for Covid vaccines, we would have saved trillions, and been far better off today. Had there been minimal lockdowns, there would have been no need for the extra unemployment and food stamp payments, and no non-eviction and no extension or canceling of student loans. We would not be experiencing the labor shortage to the extent we are now doing.

Maybe some more people might have become sick or died, but the trade was destruction of an entire generation of kids who were kept out of class, and real destruction of black kids who did not have good access to wireless service. We would not have the inflation which is hurting the lower and middle class and we would likely have had a moderate stock market instead of the huge runups we had."

Cato Institute refuses the PPP loan

We probably receive 4-5 funding appeals a day. Today it was Cato Institute--haven't heard from them before, and not sure when we were ever a donor, although I use their research from time to time on my blog.

 
GUESS WHAT CHURCHES! Cato Institute said NO to the CARES Act loan (in April 2020), Paycheck Protection Plan.

 
Why? CATO as a libertarian think tank qualified, but is wholly funded by private donations, the "overwhelming majority of which come from individuals who will suffer material losses from the pandemic." To take the loan would undermine its mission and belief that the scope and power of government should be limited.

 
Wow. I wish pastors and church boards thought that way. That by taking money from the government (us) they would be undermining their mission to spread the gospel of Jesus. By taking the PPP loans they would be supporting the lockdown and denying responsibility to be self-reliant and fiscally responsible. The Cato letter (by Peter Goettler and Robert A. Levy) continues, even when government interventions are well-intentioned, "they often carry consequence worse than the problems they're intended to address, including disincentives to innovate, favors to special interests, anticompetitive barriers to entry, overlapping and confusing laws, and abuses of public power." True. True. And true.
My church is member supported. It didn't need the PPP loan. And neither did yours. Most of my FBF are members of Christian churches. Have you asked your pastor or church treasurer about the PPP loan and were you so unfaithful in your giving that they didn't trust you to do the right thing?

  https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program Limit your search by your ZIP code and "religious organization." You'll be shocked. I was.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) look up data

 You can check data for PPP by state, ZIP, type of organization.

Under open government transparency guidelines, information on recipients of the $595B in forgivable government loans issued through the 2020 Paycheck Protection Program by the US Small Business Administration (SBA) are a matter of public record. FederalPay.org has created a powerful search tool that allows public access to the PPP loan database.  Therefore, you'll see ads on this site.

This is the link for information about churches and non-profits, national: SBA Paycheck Protection Program - Religious Organizations - FederalPay

There are a total of 96,557 businesses in the Religious Organizations industry across the country that received PPP loans. They received an average of $80,452 per loan. Some are $10,000,000 like Diocese of Covington, KY, and Lutheran Social Services of Tampa, FL.

My church, UALC, received $667,000 for 107 employees.

Churches, the relief bill, and PPP

I think this $1.9 trillion relief bill, 9% of which is directed at Covid, is a trial run for universal basic income which U.S. socialists have wanted for a long time. Eighty Five years ago Democrats under the leadership of FDR extended the Great Depression probably 5-6 years longer than a natural recovery, now they want to do the same with the pandemic economic slump. 

I do hope that churches will turn down the 2nd application for PPP. Churches are member supported organizations which do not pay federal income tax. If they have the trust of their membership who continue to pay their pledges, there's money to pay staff. It's legal, but not ethical, to apply for PPP. Especially since so many churches sat in their closed buildings and were willing to be "non-essential" in the eyes of their state governments.