The Recovery Act itself created a couple of provisions that were quite popular- but they are very temporary. There is talk about the House’s Jobs for Main Street Act, which was passed mid-December and will potentially extend the deadline until September. Tony Wilkinson, president of the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders in Stillwater, Oklahoma states that, “The conventional credit market will not near normal until sometime in 2011 because the typical small business will walk in with negative trends on his financial statement,”  commenting on the recent issues amongst small business owners in regards to access to credit, “But that’s why the SBA programs are important, because lenders can say, ‘Hey, this is a survivor who will probably make it.’”

The program, which originally began in February of 2009 has already made a great deal of progress. Bringing $16.5 billion to small-business owners and brought more than 1,200 lenders back into SBA loan programs, the benefit is clear, but it is not without its downside. By Mid November, the funds were almost gone, and lenders began to react- approving as many loans as they could under the provisions. This lead to a lengthy waiting list which the extension seeks to remedy. The waiting list itself contained 1,069 small businesses, for a total of 530 million dollars in loans. Those people that felt that they’d missed the deadline and had been put on the waiting list can now breath a sigh of relief with this extension.

For many, these provisions are going to help in ways that are too numerous to count, but the implications on those seeking start up funding for small businesses and franchises are great. It does seem as though this is one of the programs that really shows potential for helping small business owners make it through the credit crunch and be able to give back to the economic cycle. A number of small business owners already helped by the provisions are working their way back to financial stability and if these funds prove beneficial- it seems that other such programs may be on the table for review as well. The extension also brings a bit of hope to that, because it does show that the government is taking into account the needs of small business owners, and their vast impact on both the local economies and on a national level.