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www.yahoonews.com
Wyo. Recipients Unknowingly Got 9/11 Loans By DAN LEWERENZ, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Dan Klassen might not have been able to start his business without the Small Business Administration. The SBA-backed loan he received from Wells Fargo — $158,500 — helped him buy the equipment he needed to get Casper-based Optimal Air Testing Services off the ground. What Klassen doesn't understand is why his loan falls under a program meant to help businesses that were hurt by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."I'm not sure what they'd mean by that, because we were not in existence on September 11th," said Klassen, who founded his company in early 2003.Klassen is one 10 Wyoming business owners who received almost $2.7 million in loans under the Supplementary Terrorism Activity Relief (STAR) program. Most said their businesses were unaffected by the Sept. 11 attacks, and all of them contacted by The Associated Press said they had no idea they'd received terrorism-related loans."I thought we were doing a regular SBA loan," Johnson said. "I did not know it come under the terrorism program."
"I never heard any discussion of that" said Kyle Gray, president of Kistler Tent & Awning in Casper, which used its $395,000 loan to consolidate debt. Gray said Sept. 11 had little, if any, impact on his business.Within weeks after the attacks, SBA began making loans to companies that were directly affected by the attacks. In early 2002, Congress created STAR, which allowed banks to make SBA-backed loans to companies that suffered indirectly from Sept. 11. Banks, then, paid a lower fee to the SBA for STAR loans than for other SBA loan programs.
SBA records show four Wyoming businesses were in the first set of loans — Aviat Aircraft Inc. ($482,600) in Afton, Cheyenne Airmotive ($195,900), and Alltrans Inc. ($122,900) and Wild Horizons Expeditions ($7,700), both in Jackson. MY 2 CENTS!
Go to work pay your taxes, do the right thing and they take your money give it to some liquor store in Colorado under the guise that in some manner these people qualify for a FUCKING TERRORISM LOAN!
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