Newly-minted Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff spent much of this pandemic railing against the Republican-led efforts to disperse relief subsidies to Americans in need, both in the small business sector and otherwise. While Ossoff criticized the landmark Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the CARES Act, his father’s business benefited from the program, as Washington Free Beacon first reported.
Federal records from the Small Business Administration (SBA) show Strafford Publications, Inc. receiving between $350,000 and $1 million from the forgivable loan program. The senior Ossoff’s company brings in an annual revenue of $28 million.
While the Senate hopeful’s father’s affluent company benefited from the taxpayer-funded PPP, Ossoff criticized the program as exclusive to only wealthy Americans:
"...tax benefits in the CARES Act are going to flow overwhelmingly to the highest earners," Ossoff said. "There's no urgency in the government right now about getting emergency relief to ordinary people."
Ossoff’s wife also benefited from the loan program as an employee at Emory Healthcare, which received up to $140 million from the CARES Act.
Even with logistical issues, the CARES Act and PPP delivered overwhelming relief to Americans in need. While Ossoff denounced the subsidiary programs, his father, a prominent Democratic donor, benefited.
Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), on the other hand, is a proponent of the loan program. The incumbent senator, who Ossoff hopes to unseat in November, helped the legislation pass in the Senate and sat on President Trump’s economic recovery task force that worked to devise economic relief programs.