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When you're $33 trillion in debt, one would think collecting every penny counts. But in Washington, it appears not to matter.
A recently revealed failure by the Small Business Administration and the White House indicates the SBA has decided not to try to recover defaulted Economic Injury Disaster loans -- the type of loan used to assist businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic -- when the loan was under $100,000.
Those defaulted loans quickly add up.
According to the agency's inspector general, the defaulted loans total about $70 billion.
"It's completely unacceptable that SBA is leaving taxpayers on the hook for $62 billion in EIDL loans," U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said.
She's right. As the analysis by the SBA's inspector general shows, the loans were made irresponsibly, with applications not being subjected to the Treasury Department's "Do Not Pay" database.
The question now is this: Should any American taxpayer, reflecting on an executive branch irresponsibly lending money under one administration, then irresponsibly refusing to even attempt to collect the owed money under another, believe our federal government is up to the task of treating the $33 trillion deficit with any responsibility?