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.

Putting a stop to my student loan calls

Lately, we've been getting robo calls about student loans. We don't have any, of course. Neither one of us ever borrowed money from the federal government to attend college. In fact, the Department of Education didn't exist when we were in college--it's a boondoggle of a more recent era--Carter, I believe.

So I looked them up, but didn't find a way to send an e-mail without providing all sorts of personal information. These days you don't even know if a website is for real and might be stealing your information. So I phoned instead, and the first thing when I got through press one for English, and thank you for waiting all lines are busy now, was a request for my social security number and zip code, which I provided. Then the nice young lady told me I wasn't in her database. So I told her that was why I was calling. When I gave her my husband's name, she said it was him and not me they were trying to reach. I told her he was 73 and also had never had a college loan (have you noticed how college costs have increased with the availability of loans?)

So she assured me the calls would stop. I think there's an angry, stood up first wife trying to find this same guy who's delinquent on his student loan.

Feds Grant $2.1 Billion Loan Guarantee for California Solar Farm to German developer

While Obama blames evil corporations for "outsourcing" our jobs, he hands our green money over to Germany and our old fashion fossil fuel money to Brazil.

The United States Department of Energy on Monday offered a conditional $2.1 billion loan guarantee to German developer Solar Millennium to finance the first half of a 1,000 megawatt solar thermal power plant to be built in the Southern California desert.

Feds Grant $2.1 Billion Loan Guarantee for California Solar Farm - Todd Woody - Green Wombat - Forbes

Public land projects

I haven't been able to track down exactly what the "synthetic oil" is or how it is made. Here's a bit more information on using molten salt.

How do they find these sob stories?

My parents weren't wealthy, but they also didn't borrow money to send their children to college (I think one of us four were in college continually between 1953 and 1963). There were very few loans or scholarships in those days, and colleges weren't dependent on them as they are now. The more money is available for loans, the higher the costs go, is my theory. See the Measuring up 2008 report if you want to see how college costs have leap frogged over all other segments of the economy.


I went to a private Christian college, Manchester in Indiana, and then transferred to the University of Illinois; the costs at the two were comparable. I worked in high school and had enough saved ($1,000) for one year, but my parents covered the next two years. I got a small scholarship from my church, which embarrassed my father and he donated it back. I worked during summer break and about 10-15 hours a week while I was in school, usually either in the library or at a drug store near campus. I got married before I graduated and that was the end of the "gravy train," so I then had to borrow money from my father and pay it back, and I cobbled together some graduate stipends. I had to beg the powers at U. of I., as I recall, to be considered a state resident, because I'd married an out-of-state student, and like our names, the residency seemed to change with the spouse. I also got turned down for a better paid graduate assistantship because I was married, and had "a spouse who could support me." Ah those were the days!


Still, it doesn't sound as silly as one of the examples in today's WSJ, about a real estate agent working one of the most fabulous vacation spots in the country, San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, who is struggling with her son's University of Chicago tuition as sales drop off. To add to the economic down turn stress, her husband has lymphoma. Someone in that family needs a spinal implant--either the mother or son. In a blink of an eye, I knew what my dad would have done. I'd be called home, the facts of life would be explained, and an offer presented--I'd either transfer to a state school, or I'd get a job.

Jane Sawyer, a real-estate agent in San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, is struggling to keep her son, Michael Guard, enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he's now a sophomore. "I'm trying really hard so he doesn't graduate with a mountain of debt," she says.

As house sales fell this year, Ms. Sawyer says, her income tumbled to a third of what she'd made in previous years, while her expenses rose. Her husband, Michael's stepfather, recently had a stem-cell transplant for lymphoma. All of that has left Michael, 19, scrambling for money to stay at Chicago for the quarter that begins after Christmas. He already has some grants and student loans, covering about $20,000 of Chicago's $50,000-a-year bill. But he's been relying on his mother and savings from summer jobs to cover the remainder.

Michael, who studies philosophy and Spanish, is now considering asking his step-grandfather for a loan. He says he may skip the winter quarter and transfer to a cheaper school next year. "I hate the idea of having to borrow money," he says."

And to top it off, he's studying philosophy--what's the return on a degree like that? For this his mother lies awake at night trying to figure out how to pay his bills? Oh, yes, it is a very different time.

Why George Bush isn't a fiscal conservative

The man spends like a Democrat. And they didn't even like him for it. A huge number of these were for poverty, environment, education, health, etc., indirectly and under the table adding thousands to the government payroll and subverting state and local control. That's why Obama's campaign of concern and caring for us po' folk who could barely walk and chew gum without the federal government's help was so odd. It can only grow, and yet more of what didn't work under a Republican will work under a Democrat?

From Chris Edwards, Cato at Liberty, Dec. 4, 2007.

This chart updates a longer article he published in October 2006. I noticed in that article one of the biggest new initiatives of the Bush Administration was $150,000,000 for "Healthy Marriage Promotion," which provided grants to states, non-profits, etc. to provide counseling, workshops and celebrations of events such as National Black Marriage Day.

Healthy Marriage Grants will range from $250,000 to $5,000,000 depending on the scope of the project. Average award: $1,000,000. Responsible Fatherhood Grants will range from $200,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the scope of the project. Average award: $700,000. Tribal TANF Child Welfare Grants will range from $25,000 to $100,000. Average Award: $80,000.

Children raised by married parents have a very modest chance of growing up in poverty, whereas an unmarried mom almost guarantees it. However, I think this was an open invitation for misuse of the taxpayers money. The required audits will never try to judge how many teen minority fathers married the mothers of their children because they attended a workshop. Churches have been working on this problem for years even with middle class families, and losing ground. I don't think throwing $150 million at it will change much (unless they throw it at Hollywood or TV which seems a bigger influence than church or parents). As in all these subsidies, very little makes it to the problem, and most goes for overhead like salaries, rent, utilities, food, consultants, printing, publishing, research, etc. Here's an article in the Columbus Dispatch of how $500,000 that came to Ohio was spent.

Here's a list of the top 10% of CFDA searches. I've been writing a lot about the housing grants, so here's a few from that list. All would require partnering non-profits with with business or state agencies or alone.

10.442 USDA Housing Application Packaging Grants

10.410 USDA Very Low to Moderate Income Housing Loans

14.313 HUD Dollar Home Sales

14.247 HUD Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program

14.235 HUD Supportive Housing Program

97.048 DHS Disaster Housing Assistance to Individuals and Households

in Presidential Declared Disaster Areas (must have been the mother of housing boondoggles: FY 07 $189,366,831--probably could have completely rebuilt NOLA with this grant--it's just one year figure)

10.417 USDA Very Low-Income Housing Repair Loans and Grants

14.311 HUD Single Family Property Disposition

14.239 HUD Home Investment Partnerships Program

14.149 HUD Rent Supplements_Rental Housing for Lower Income Families

10.433 USDA Rural Housing Preservation Grants

14.195 HUD Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments Program_Special Allocations

15.633 DOI Landowner Incentive Program

14.401 HUD Fair Housing Assistance Program_State and Local

10.415 USDA Rural Rental Housing Loans

14.901 HUD Healthy Homes Demonstration Grants

10.427 USDA Rural Rental Assistance Payments

14.871 HUD Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers

This is an old one--originally authorized in 1937--FY 09 est $16,253,000,000--yes, that's 16 billion for 2 million families, and they only get part of the rent--wonder where the rest of it goes? That's some overhead!

14.401 HUD Fair Housing Assistance Program_State and Local

10.415 USDA Rural Rental Housing Loans

14.181 HUD Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities

14.169 HUD Housing Counseling Assistance Program [FY 09 est $60,000,000]

14.856 HUD Lower Income Housing Assistance Program_Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation

10.411 USDA Rural Housing Site Loans and Self_Help Housing Land Development Loans

14.157 HUD Supportive Housing for the Elderly

[FY 09 est $791,303,000] Based on the numbers of units built in 2007 (3,857) I figure they cost about $195,000 each--not bad for single resident, low income.

14.250 HUD Rural Housing and Economic Development [FY 08 $17,000,000 The only accomplishments listed were 854 jobs]

81.042 DOE Weatherization Assistance for Low-Income Persons [FY 07 $204,356,661 this one is about $50,000,000 less in FY 09--must be that global warming benefit]

93.568 HHS Low-Income Home Energy Assistance

14.142 HUD Property Improvement Loan Insurance for Improving All Existing Structures and Building of New Nonresidential Structures

14.110 HUD Manufactured Home Loan Insurance_Financing Purchase of Manufactured Homes as Principal Residences of Borrowers

The widening gap

You can't turn on the radio, TV or open a newspaper without someone talking about a gap*--and I don't mean the store where teen-agers shop. There's a poverty gap, a gender gap, a technology gap, a health care gap, yada, yada. Three and a half years ago I wrote down my reasons for the widening gap between the rich and the poor (this is actually a fabrication because people are retiring and by plan and choice reducing their household income, but let's imagine there is a gap). Let's call it The Easy Gap.

1. Easy credit cards: We got our first credit card in the late 60s--I think it was a "Shopper’s Charge." We now have one department store credit card and one bank card--we’ve never carried a balance. Since the late 80s and into the 90s, many new households have never known what it was to live on their earned income. 2. Easy divorce: Christians now have the same divorce rate as anyone else in the culture. When we married 48 years ago, regular religious observance offered families some protection. No fault divorce particularly hurt women and children, pushing them economically into competition with two income families. 3. Easy sex: Casual one-night stands were glorified in the movies of the 70s and 80s. Although adultery and fornication had long been a theme in literature, drama and movies, casual sex and living together before marriage became the gold standard of relationships by the 80s, even though it’s been proven that it increases the divorce rate. Then easy sex came into the living rooms via TV so that even young children think who’s spending the night is no more important than what toothpaste mom buys. Women having and raising babies alone is the biggest cause of growing poverty and the gap that liberals worry about. 4. Easy birth control and abortion: The millions of Americans that might have sprung from the loins of some of our best and brightest have been denied life itself, and thus their slots in the pie chart has been taken by poor, uneducated immigrants. Obviously this creates a huge gap between the middle class and the poor, who instead of having a solid footing as those aborted citizens might have had, flood across our borders or arrive as refugees with nothing. 5. Easy technology and gadgets: Time wasted on I-pods and text messaging and vegging out in front of bad movies on DVDs has certainly absorbed billions of hours that could have been invested in networking, education or advancing up the career ladder. Cable and cell phone monthly costs easily equal what we spent on a mortgage 30 years ago. 6. Easy bankruptcy: Load up the credit cards with consumer spending, mortgage your future, then make the rest of us pay it off for you. It might have been Plan B 20 years ago, but is now Plan A. Interest only mortgages, leases for larger and more expensive vehicles, second mortgages--for a generation who thinks the future will be paid for by someone else, it’s a recipe for a growing gap. 7. Easy leisure: Thirty eight years ago (1970) few middle class families took vacations--if Dad had a week off (and most companies didn’t offer it) he spent it fixing the house. Sure it’s a huge industry and employs a lot of people, but we’re looking at the gap aren’t we? We’d probably been married 10 years before we took a family vacation (my parents never had one), and then it was at my mother’s farm for a week. Our daughter and her husband had been to Key West, Arruba and took a Mexican cruise in the first 5 years of their marriage. 8. Easy entertainment: This is related to leisure and technology, but today’s young families have difficulty being alone or quiet, it would seem. Even 30 years olds seem unable to walk around without head phones. They are spending their children’s future at movies, sporting events and theme parks. A visit to the library is most likely to pick up a movie, not a book. 9. Easy college loans: Instead of attending a state school, working during the summer or attending closer to home, many young people begin their real working lives with huge debt, a debt that takes years to pay off, assuming they don’t default. Loans were so easy in the 80s, that parents who could well afford to pay tuition had their children at the public trough. 10. Easy shopping: You can be a couch potato or a computer novice and never leave home to shop. Addiction is easy. Just call in with the credit card. See? And I haven’t even said a word about how much health care costs, or how the women’s movement changed our culture, public transportation or taxes. And while the government is tangentially involved in these areas, mostly it boils down to perfectly legal choices, choices which when they become ingrained in our way of life lead to poverty or slippage down by a quintile for the next generation.

According to a google search: health care gap = 15,700; gender gap = 842,000; technology gap = 166,000; obesity gap = 417; poverty gap = 113,000.

4052

Can you say No?

Some people have a problem saying or hearing the word NO. I think it is the first word children say, either because they hear it so often or because it is short and easy to say. So why is it, that people have such a problem with it later in life? My mother, God bless her, had a problem with that word. Her favorite phrase was, "We'll see." That just put off the inevitable, but she didn't get into trouble with it. I didn't follow her example. In fact, it drives me crazy when people aren't honest about wanting to say NO, so they just lead you on until it is too late to make other plans, or you've moved on only to find out later something else was about to happen.



So here's how I'd do it--how to say NO.

1. To a request to bake a cake for a fund raiser/good cause. I say, "NO, if you needed a pie, I'd gladly help out, but I don't do cakes. If you'll accept store-bought or bakery, I'll do it." I never say, "Let me get back to you on that." I'm 67 years old and I think I should know the answer to this one--you'll love my pie, and pass on my cake.

2. To a request to join yet another organization. I say, "NO, I already belong to two small groups and that's about my limit. I don't want to add anything else to my calendar." However, I do say YES if it's a short term task with a beginning and end in sight, but that has to be clarified. Also, I can spot "empire building" from 50 yards, so don't even ask if that's your intent.

3. To a request for a dinner date with my husband for Thursday if we already have plans for Friday and Sunday. I say "NO, sweety, those extra calories don't bother you one bit, but I don't want them." I'm probably the only wife who says NO to a dinner out, but you gotta do what you gotta do, or else walk an extra 5 miles a day!

4. To a request for a donation. I say, "NO, we tithe to our church and contribute to several community organizations we believe in. We have met our limit for this year."

5. To a request to help in my professional area of expertise. I say "NO, I believe that level of support deserves an employee and not a volunteer. Have you considered hiring someone?"

6. To a request to join a committee. I usually say NO, but there are exceptions. You don't ever want to appoint me Chair, because I'll dissolve the committee.

7. To a request to borrow money. Usually this is NO, but we have helped out our children occasionally, and other relatives if we know they haven't been irresponsible. My parents loaned us the downpayment for our first house, loaned me money to finish college and financed a car for us, so I had help, too--in my early 20s. Dad would set up payments with interest. However, don't ever loan money that you can't offer as a gift, or you might be disappointed and don't use it as a means to control behavior. The relationship is more important than the money. You just create hard feelings by making people indebted to you. Once we gave money to one of my husband's relatives because we knew a loan was out of the questions--he would have never paid it back.

8. To a request to babysit or help in the church nursery. Can't think that any one would ask this today, but in the past, I always caught a cold. Babies and toddlers are crawling with germs for which I have no immunity. Wording this NO is tricky, however, or you do sound like a meany. Honesty would be best so they can call the next name on the list.

My mother did give me some advice on saying NO, although I don't usually follow it. She suggested, in her dear, nonconfrontational way, that I at least look like I'm thinking about the request before I say NO.

When my daughter was in elementary school, the teacher sent home a grade report that said something to the effect that she had an overdeveloped sense of NO. Good girl. A woman after my own heart.