Drawing the Tan Line Against Terrorism

Here's the latest on our government's war on terrorism from Reuters:

A Texas golf course, a Nevada tanning salon and an Illinois candy shop were among small businesses that may have improperly received U.S. subsidized loans intended for firms hurt by the September 11 attacks, an internal government watchdog has found.

Did terrorists secretly attack a tanning salon, and we weren't told about it? Is no one safe getting a few artificial rays? What is this country coming to when you can't tee up in peace? Attacking golf is attacking the heart attack of America!

Well, not that simple. It seems:

The tanning salon's lender blamed the September 11 attacks for hurting the Las Vegas casino industry which employed many of the salon's customers.

So do the watchdogs bark at the absurdity of compensating a tanning salon for 9-11? Not exactly. It's not the absurd and outrageous claim that bothers them. It's finding out that it wasn't even true.

However, the inspector general found the salon's business had grown by 52 percent in 2001 and 32 percent in 2002 and said there was no evidence the owner could not borrow outside of the program. The SBA guaranteed $437,000 in loans to the salon, which were used to expand.

As for the golf course:

The report's examples included the Texas golf course, whose owner was cited by a lender as saying "people were more interested in staying home and watching the attack on television than playing golf."

However, the course was owned by someone else when the attacks took place and the justification for the $480,000 in loan guarantees did not apply to the new owner, the report said.

This was all under a one-year, $4.5 billion program, the Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief, or STAR, which provided loan guarantees to small businesses adversely affected by the September 11 attacks. Or who made such claims, however outrageous. For the agency's inspector general found that in 85 percent of the sample of loans it reviewed, a company's eligibility to receive the money through the program could not be verified.

The Small Business Administration still insists it acted properly, but added that it has told lenders it will not honor guarantees on defaulted loans that fail to document the September 11 link. Yeah, that would be too much.

Still, it's heartening to know that while sick people will be sacrificing their health for the cause as Medicaid and Medicare cuts go through, and students will sacrifice their education if they can't replace the federal loans that were cut, at least a Texas golf course is getting back the money lost when people selfishly watched their fellow Americans die and the Twin Towers come down, instead of doing their patriotic duty out on the fairway.