Blog - 22 TARP Supporters Vote Against the Small Business Lending Fund

On Friday I wrote about a vote in the Senate Thursday evening on an amendment to the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act that sets the bill up to pass next week. Senate Republicans have been opposing a provision in the bill that create a $30 billion small business lending fund because, they say, it’s too similar to the TARP big-bank bailout program that was pushed through Congress by the Bush Administration in 2008. But on Thursday evening, Senate Democrats, with the help of a couple wayward Republicans, were able to secure passage of an amendment to keep the small-business fund in the bill.

So, naturally, I wanted to take a second to compare Thursday’s vote on the small business lending fund with the 2008 vote on TARP itself. As it turns out, a total of 22 senators voted both in favor of the TARP program in 2008, which leant $700 billion to the big banks to do pretty much whatever they want, and agains the small business lending fund, which would lend $30 billion to small banks to loan to small businesses for the purposes of creating jobs. Here’s the list:

1. Sen. Lamar Alexander [R, TN]
2. Sen. Robert Bennett [R, UT]
3. Sen. Richard Burr [R, NC]
4. Sen. Saxby Chambliss [R, GA]
5. Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
6. Sen. Susan Collins [R, ME]
7. Sen. Bob Corker [R, TN]
8. Sen. John Cornyn [R, TX]
9. Sen. John Ensign [R, NV]
10. Sen. Lindsey Graham [R, SC]
11. Sen. Charles Grassley [R, IA]
12. Sen. Judd Gregg [R, NH]
13. Sen. Orrin Hatch [R, UT]
14. Sen. Kay Hutchison [R, TX]
15. Sen. John Isakson [R, GA]
16. Sen. Jon Kyl [R, AZ]
17. Sen. Richard Lugar [R, IN]
18. Sen. John McCain [R, AZ]
19. Sen. Mitch McConnell [R, KY]
20. Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R, AK]
21. Sen. Olympia Snowe [R, ME]
22. Sen. John Thune [R, SD]

That’s officially more than half of the current Senate Republican caucus.