00:00Thank you chairman. Administrator, good to see you. How are you?
00:03Administrator, before you were the head of the SBA, you earned an MBA, you were a CFA chart holder,
00:09you founded a fintech company, and you served in the U.S. Senate, is that right?
00:12That's correct.
00:13And you've been the head of the SBA for about four months now?
00:17Three months and a week.
00:18I think somebody's had 107 days. That's pretty neat.
00:20That's right.
00:21And you've been pretty busy. You've been touring the country,
00:24supporting America's small businesses on your Made in America roadshow.
00:28That's right, Congressman. We got to see you out in New York,
00:32which was wonderful to see all the manufacturing happening on Long Island.
00:35And isn't it true that of all the places you've visited, Long Island was the best place you visited?
00:40It's certainly memorable. It's important.
00:42I object.
00:44I hate to put you on the spot, but when you were on Long Island,
00:47do you remember the technology company Orbic that we met?
00:50I do, Congressman.
00:53It's an American company located on Long Island,
00:56and they do what many Trump trade policy critics say can't be done in the United States of America.
01:03They make technology products like smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
01:09Madam Administrator, I'm certain that you and I agree that President Trump is right
01:13to want to protect our supply chain from international disruptions
01:17and bring manufacturing back to America.
01:19My question is, what can the SBA do to help small businesses like Orbic who help accomplish those worthy goals?
01:28Well, we certainly see manufacturing growing across this country.
01:32Our loan volume in our 7A program for manufacturers is up 74% in President Trump's first 100 days,
01:40demonstrating an investment in manufacturing like never before.
01:44Over 1,120 loans certainly saw that taking place on Long Island,
01:50and that's why I'm grateful for the chairman's leadership on the Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act,
01:56which I hope in this committee would be bipartisan,
01:58to get more capital in the hands of our innovators,
02:02those that are providing jobs and production of critical technologies like 5G and cell phones
02:10and other infrastructure that this country so greatly needs.
02:13And we'll continue to work through that.
02:16Recently, we launched our on-shoring portal for small businesses.
02:20It's made available on the SBA website for small businesses to source products domestically.
02:25It lists over 1 million domestically sourced manufacturing sources
02:30to strengthen supply chains domestically.
02:33So those are just some of the things we're focused on.
02:36Administrator, that portal's great.
02:38For the folks who will watch this later on YouTube or wherever else,
02:41where can they access that portal?
02:44It can be found on our homepage at sba.gov.
02:47And you click into the portal, and you can choose from three private sector databases
02:51that list all kinds of products, produce, even production materials,
02:58and sourcing domestically is the focus of that portal.
03:02And when you Google make on-shore great again, it gets you to your website.
03:08Is there any fee charge or is there a sign-up barrier to access that portal?
03:12There's no cost.
03:14It's made available through the SBA's resources.
03:16Love it.
03:16I was honored this morning.
03:17I think that many of my constituents and small business owners will gain from that.
03:22Shifting gears, you were caught off several times when responding to the ranking member
03:26and others questioning.
03:27I wanted to give you some time to reply.
03:30First, on the number of staff at the SBA, my friends from the other side of the aisle
03:35are criticizing you for bringing that number of SBA employees to 2,700.
03:40Madam Administrator, why is 2,700 the right number?
03:44Well, our reductions total 2,700.
03:46The total staff would be 3,800 post reductions, and certainly that excludes our disaster operations,
03:56which scale up and down, and certainly have been incredibly responsive, already putting
04:02out more disaster loans, $3.4 billion in disaster loans operating across 1,300 counties in this
04:09country right now, 25 disasters.
04:12So we're scaling that very well.
04:13But the right, bigger is not more efficient, and what we're finding is that as we reduce
04:18bureaucracy, we get more focused on small business, and the results are in the loan numbers that
04:23you see.
04:24It's, we're more productive.
04:25Small businesses are telling me in the field that they see that we are back after a long
04:30hiatus, and we're going to be able to innovate and become even more productive for small
04:34businesses at that level.
04:36Great.
04:36I appreciate that.
04:37Bringing us back to a pre-pandemic number, I think, is right for America.
04:41Of wage growth, GDP growth, inflation rates, number of valid loans made, and number of SBA
04:48employees.
04:50Of those five, which is the least valuable metric to analyze the SBA's performance?
04:55Number of SBA employees.
04:57I yield back.
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