Coronavirus in Texas: Austin congressman gets federal bailout money for car dealership

An Austin-area congressman who ranks as one of the wealthiest members of Congress said that the car dealership he owns won a potentially forgivable loan from the federal government’s coronavirus bailout fund.

U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, received Paycheck Protection Program money — he won’t say how much — to support his car dealership in Weatherford, west of Fort Worth.

Williams, who is running for reelection in the 25th Congressional District, which includes parts of West, Central and East Austin, as well as Dripping Springs and Wimberley, declined an interview request from the American-Statesman.

Instead, his congressional office spokesperson emailed a statement on his behalf saying the program has been a “lifeline for small businesses desperate to save jobs and avoid laying off employees. In the case of our family business, we utilized a PPP loan like millions of other American small businesses so we would not have to tell any one of our dedicated employees they no longer have a job.”

Williams supported the federal law creating the Paycheck Protection Program; thus far the U.S. Small Business Administration has declined to disclose the names of loan recipients or how much they received.

The Statesman has filed a federal open records request for that information.

The federal government has made more than 310,000 loans, worth more than $41 billion, to Texas businesses. That comes out to an average of about $130,000 per loan, but major firms, including publicly traded companies, have gotten millions of dollars through the program.

The program money is meant to be “necessary to support the ongoing operations of the applicant,” according to federal documents establishing the fund, and “will be used to retain workers and maintain payroll.”

Among the questions Williams declined to answer: Was the federal money needed to keep his Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep business afloat; how he has used the money; and whether applying for the aid clashes with his free-market principles or changed his views on the uses of big government.

In answering a Statesman candidate questionnaire earlier this year, Williams said his mission this year is “making sure capitalism defeats socialism.”

Williams, with a net worth of at least $45 million, is the ninth-wealthiest member of the U.S. House, according to a ranking by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics, based on 2018 financial disclosures.

The Dallas Morning News first reported that Williams was a recipient of Paycheck Protection Program money.

Dealerships benefited

A “fair number” of Texas auto dealerships have received Paycheck Protection Program money, according to Darren Whitehurst, president of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, which represents about 1,400 dealers, who employ roughly 100,000 people.

He did not know the exact number or how much money they might have received.

Dealerships “are fairly people-intensive businesses,” he said, and, “as the name implies, part of the reason behind the Paycheck Protection Program was to try and make sure people didn’t end up in unemployment.”

With sales and service at dealerships off by at least 40% around the state, he said, “you’re going to end up laying off people.”

“A lot of dealers applied to the program in an effort to keep employees on,” he said.

Calls and emails to major Austin area dealerships about whether they applied for and received Paycheck Protection Program money — such as Henna Chevrolet and Covert Ford — went unreturned.

Criticism

“It troubles me that a wealthy member of Congress has access to the funds when plenty of small business owners missed out,” Bethany Albertson, a University of Texas government professor, wrote on Twitter this week.

“This is the exact kind of BS that people hate about Washington,” U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., tweeted. “I’m finalizing a bill that will make PPP data public, because corrupt actors like this should have to answer to the American people.”

Democrat Julie Oliver, an Austin lawyer who lost to Williams in 2018 by 8.7 percentage points and is challenging him again this year, said the revelation was not surprising.

"We aren't surprised when we learn that members of Congress and mega-donors abuse their positions of public trust and power to move to the front of the line, while mom and pop businesses who are hurting in Texas got shut out of the stimulus program within weeks,“ Oliver said in a statement. ”We need to end the corruption, get big money out of Congress, elect those who know what it means to work for a living and who will be accountable to those she serves."

CORONAVIRUS IN TEXAS: What we know, latest updates

Congress established the Paycheck Protection Program as part of a major coronavirus aid package in March. An initial $349 billion in the program was fully allocated within 13 days.

Under the program, loans will be fully forgiven if the money is used for payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent and utilities. Otherwise, the loans have a maturity of two years and a 1% interest rate. Loan payments also will be deferred for six months. No collateral or personal guarantees are required. Neither the government nor lenders will charge small businesses any fees.

Forgiveness is based on the employer maintaining or quickly rehiring employees and maintaining salary levels. Forgiveness will be reduced if full-time headcount declines, or if salaries and wages decrease.

Paycheck Protection Program