Americans are rightly outraged after learning that many large companies, including Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, received millions of dollars from a coronavirus response program that was supposed to go to small businesses. The money came from the initial $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program, passed by Congress and administered by the Treasury and the Small Business Administration, which was expressly intended to keep Main Street businesses afloat by offering them loans that the government would forgive so long as they used the money to maintain their payrolls.
The anger is reminiscent of the fury that followed the government’s last attempt to rescue the economy, after the financial crisis in 2008, when similar promises were quickly abandoned in favor of aiding Wall Street. I helped oversee that program as the special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and there are many lessons from the past that can help avoid the inequity and resulting political upheaval that followed.
