Article from For Liberty by Norm Leahy.

The Small Business Administration published data on companies that received loans of $150,000 or more from the Paycheck Protection Program.

More than 660,000 loans have been made so far totaling more than $500 billion.

The loans were intended to help smaller businesses keep workers on the payroll, and were forgivable if  60 percent of the loan amount was used for wages.

Critics of the program say it was rife with waste and helped prop-up the very swamp President Donald Trump says he wants drained:

Politico reports that PPP borrowers included companies owned or founded by members of Congress, as well as the educational arms of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Several lobbying firms, technically barred from receiving loans if over half their revenue comes from lobbying, also benefited from PPP.

On the executive side of things, the Daily Beast reports that several companies linked to the family of White House Special Adviser (and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law) Jared Kushner received PPP loans.

As questionable as some of the loans maybe, more than $134 billion is still available in the program, and Congress has agreed to extend its ability to make loans to Aug. 8.

Why is so much money still available? Rules that were constantly changing, inflexible mandates, and old-fashioned bureaucratic indifference.

None of which stopped the well-heeled, the connected, and the powerful, who got loans while thousands of small businesses suffered:

Any PPP loan that went to a politically connected lobbying firm or a billionaire-owned shoe company is a loan that did not go to the government-shuttered restaurant or similar small business down the street. All those PPP dollars could have gone towards relief programs better targeted at the least well off. The money could have also gone straight back into the hands of taxpayers.

You can search the list of companies that got loans worth $1 million or more here.