Obama Speaks on Small Business Stimulus at Metropolitan Archives Oct. 21

Update: Obama reaffirms his commitment to get small businesses the financing they need. He raised caps on small business loans and said Timothy Geithner and Karen Mills, SBA administrator, will confer with others on how to get more credit flowing to small businesses.

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Obama at White House astronomy night

Obama will speak today at 1:45 pm eastern from Metropolitan Archives, a small business in Maryland. It's likely to be live streamed at cnn.com. A live audio stream will be available at whitehouse.gov/live. I'll post video when it's up. Also today, Obama will interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie and he'll travel to New Jersey to speak at a rally for Jon Corzine at 6 pm:

President Obama will visit a Maryland business on Wednesday afternoon to announce initiatives to encourage lending to small businesses. According to an administration official, the proposal will increase the caps for existing Small Business Administration loans and give smaller banks better access to funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

An industry official involved in S.B.A. lending said the White House would propose raising the cap on the agency’s flagship 7(a) loan from $2 million to $5 million. But other programs are likely to see increases, too, including the 504 program.

The event will take place at Metropolitan Archives, a records storage company in Landover, northeast of Washington, that financed its warehouse in part with a $2 million loan guarantee under the 504 program, according to Chris Crawford, president of the National Association of Development Companies, which lobbies for nonprofit 504 lenders. NYT

Repaid TARP Funds Now Open To Community Banks

The Obama administration will use bailout money repaid by large banks to provide additional capital infusions to community banks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday.
In remarks to an association of community bankers, Geithner also said the administration is moving forward with plans to streamline financial rules as part of a broader overhaul to be unveiled in the next several weeks.
Banks with less than $500 million in assets will have six months to apply for the funds, Geithner said. They also will be able to apply for larger amounts than banks were allowed to request during the current round of investments.
The Treasury Department has said it expects banks to repay $25 billion in government funds over the next year. Banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have said they want to pay back the money they've received from $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, as soon as possible. AP