Presidential Candidate Kanye West Took a COVID Relief Loan Meant for Small Businesses

One of the reasons that the United States has had basically the world’s worst response to the coronavirus pandemic is our government’s absolute refusal to pay people to stay home. Sure, if you open up too quickly and go back to work you risk getting COVID-19 and dying but you also have a pretty high risk of dying if you can’t afford food or shelter, and that one is a lot easier to understand.

Some of the meager scraps the US government offered citizens was a loan program called the Paycheck Protection Program, loans for small businesses to pay employees during periods of shutdown that the government will forgive if companies generally keep people on payroll and keep wages at the same levels they were.

These loans had a pretty limited availability and it has way more overhead than just sending every individual a check. So it’s kind of a slap in the face to find out billionaire Kanye West took a PPP loan of somewhere between $2-$5 million, but he did.

You know how we kind of love Kanye and kind of hate Kanye? This is definitely going in the hate category. Because Kanye took this loan, some small business owner who actually couldn’t afford to pay employees during the shutdown may never reopen. Kanye is a billionaire, he can afford to pay his employees even if he’s not bringing in new income. Billionaires don’t need millions of dollars in government handouts.

And for a dude that’s always talking about Jesus now, does anyone think Jesus would take money he didn’t need away from someone who could actually use it?