New Small Business Lending Program

President Obama debuted his $30 billion program to lend money to small businesses with the hopes that it will spur hiring in a prolonged period of high unemployment. The program would take its funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and encourage community banks to lend to small businesses. "Small businesses … have created roughly 65% of all new jobs over the past decade and a half. And I think we should make it easier for them," Obama said. Officials said the Treasury would provide capital investments to the 8,000 banks across the country with assets of less than $10 billion—those institutions do more than half of small business lending in the U.S.