Congress overlooks rural businesses during critical time

JOHNATHAN HLADIK

Policy director

Center for Rural Affairs

As they continue to face challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic, rural small businesses and communities with loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program find themselves on the outside once again.

Provisions of the Rural Equal Aid Act, a measure with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, were left out of the latest round of stimulus funding approved Monday by Congress.

Our elected officials have again let these rural entrepreneurs down and have forgotten the pandemic has been just as severe,...