Iowa’s Third Congressional District Representative Cindy Axne introduced legislation last week to provide relief to rural businesses who utilized loans from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Axne says rural America was overlooked while the Coronavirus pandemic was at its height.

“What happened here is that during COVID, the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP as so many small business owners know, gave them an opportunity for a loan and also to push back interest and forgiveness within the loans that small businesses took out with the Small Business Administration. We have folks who have loans through the USDA that did not receive that same relief and forgiveness within the loans that they took out.”

Axne says it’s only fair to extend the same provisions to sustain rural businesses as they did to cities.

“It helps those rural businesses. Over 90 percent have less than 500 employees and most have less than 20. These are definitely the businesses on our main street that support our local economies. This will help them weather the storm, very common sense. I hope that we move this forward, so that we don’t leave some of these rural businesses behind that took out USDA  loans.”

The Rural Equal Aid Act utilizes USDA loans through the Community Facilities Loan Program, Business and Industry Loan Program, Intermediary Relending Program and the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program.