RE: Forgive COVID EIDL Debt.

Dear Mr. President,
Dear Members of Congress,

I am writing on behalf of millions of American small business owners and entrepreneurs—the backbone of American innovation, employment, and economic resilience—who were not defeated by poor judgment, lack of effort, or market failure, but by a sequence of government actions, distortions, and macroeconomic shocks entirely beyond their control.

From the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 through COVID-19 and the inflationary collapse that followed, small businesses have been repeatedly sacrificed to protect institutions deemed “too big to fail,” while the people who actually employ Americans were left exposed.

In 2008–2009, nearly $800 billion was deployed to rescue Wall Street institutions whose excesses caused the collapse, while mortgage payers and small business owners were largely left to choose between financial ruin and walking away from years—sometimes decades—of equity and work. No meaningful, large-scale mechanism was created to stabilize the small business economy at its foundation.

The subsequent eight years compounded the damage. Capital became more difficult to access, regulatory burdens increased, energy costs rose, and inflation quietly eroded margins. For many small businesses, survival—not growth—became the goal.

Only in 2018 and 2019 did conditions begin to materially improve. Pro-growth tax reform, regulatory relief, and the restoration of American energy independence finally allowed stimulus to move far enough downstream to reach real businesses and real workers. Investment increased. Confidence returned. Hiring resumed.

Then COVID-19 struck.

The pandemic and the government responses to it—lockdowns, forced closures, supply-chain disruptions, and historic monetary expansion—created an economic shock without precedent. Small businesses were disproportionately harmed. While some assistance programs existed, they were temporary measures applied to what became a multi-year economic trauma.

The Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, in particular, became not a bridge to recovery, but a long-term anchor. What were presented as short-term emergency loans turned into 30-year obligations that now trap over a million small businesses in structural insolvency. Large principal payments do not meaningfully reduce monthly obligations. Defaults are widespread. Access to new capital has collapsed.

Many business owners who once supported families, employees, and communities now live in poverty—not because they failed, but because the economic ground was repeatedly pulled out from beneath them.

This damage was compounded by four years of historic inflation, demand destruction, and capital withdrawal. Buyers stopped buying. Investment paused. Wealth consolidated. Larger companies moved into markets vacated by failed small businesses. Entire local economies hollowed out.

This is not the result of free markets. It is the result of cascading policy failures, emergency mismanagement, and macroeconomic decisions whose costs were pushed downstream onto those least able to absorb them.

If there is ever a circumstance in which government intervention is justified, it is when government action itself is a primary cause of harm.

For that reason, I urge immediate consideration of a comprehensive small business restoration initiative built on three principles:

Justice – Businesses permanently destroyed by pandemic-era policies and macroeconomic fallout should not carry lifelong debt for circumstances beyond their control. COVID EIDL obligations for such businesses should be forgiven.

Survivability – For businesses that remain viable but are being crushed by EIDL payments, existing COVID EIDL loans should be forgiven in full, preventing further defaults and restoring access to capital.

Rebuilding – A new Small Business Stimulus Loan (SBSL) program should be established at meaningful scale, designed to restore productive capacity, employment, and supply-chain resilience—not to subsidize speculation.

Small businesses employ half of all of the American workforce—directly and indirectly—through W-2 and 1099 arrangements. That is down nearly 50% percent in just three decades. Small businesses represent 99.9% of all businesses and are the incubator to American innovation. They are critical to national security, domestic manufacturing, construction, housing affordability, food supply, and innovation. When they fail, the nation weakens.

This is not a request for charity. It is a call to correct a systemic injustice and unlock the next phase of American economic growth.

America does not rebuild from the top down. It rebuilds from the middle out—through the entrepreneurs, builders, contractors, manufacturers, and service providers who actually make the economy function.

With decisive action, the remaining small businesses can grow again. Employment can rise. Wages can rise. Tax revenues can rise. Communities can recover.

But without action, the slow liquidation of America’s small business class will continue—quietly, permanently, and at enormous long-term cost.

I respectfully urge you to lead.

Sincerely,

Andrew Bales