Big companies get millions as Tennessee small businesses are left out by loan program

Chris Cobb is the owner of Exit/In, the historic Elliston Place music venue that has hosted Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Billy Joel and others. He has already laid off more than two dozen hourly employees, and he is desperately trying to keep five more, but help has been hard to come by.

“Yeah it’s frustrating,” Cobb told Alex Apple of Fox17 Nashville. “The sad reality is a lot of this money isn’t going where it was intended. It’s a broken system.”

Tennessee will receive $2.3 billion from the federal government, and reporter Alex Apple asked Governor Bill Lee if he planned to allot some of that money for small business loans.

“We have to ask specific questions around how that one can be spent,” Lee said. “We have to outline how we think it’s best spent, and then work with the federal government.”

In Tennessee where over 300,000 people have filed for unemployment, delays only enlarge a snowball headed downhill. Cobb needs that help sooner than later.