Small Business Loans: Help is on the way . . .

The Treasury Department is preparing a new lending program to help small businesses.
Herbert Allison, who is the assistant secretary overseeing the $700 billion TARP bailout, told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that the Treasury would buy up to $15 billion in securities backed by loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. He wouldn’t say when the program might start.
Will this open up more small-business lending?
The monthly small-business loan volume for the SBA-guaranteed program dropped in the Santa Ana District from $67.7 million in September 2008 to a low of $15.9 million in January. It has come half way back to $38.6 million in August.
The one crumb tossed to small businesses from the federal bailout was the American Recovery Capital loans - ARC for short - that were interest free and payment deferred. Tens of thousands of business owners called banks but the loans have been slowly trickling out.
Meanwhile, the regular federally-guaranteed loan program has been slowly recovering locally. Here’s the trend for lending in the Santa Ana district of the U.S. Small Business Administration: