The Backlash Against PPP Is Why the U.S. Can’t Have Nice Things

This story was updated on July 7 at 10:17 p.m.

The pandemic is out of control, the economy is in the toilet, and the weather is unpleasant, but at least the schadenfreude is excellent this week.

Yesterday the Small Business Administration released a list of loan recipients under the Paycheck Protection Program, part of the hastily passed CARES Act stimulus. The list is full of targets ripe for naming and shaming. There are plutocrats (), kleptocrats (, and Kanye (whose Yeezy brand received between $2 and $5 million). There are some particularly humorous examples of groups that decry people taking from the government who are, well, taking from the government: the , Americans for Tax Reform. This is the second round of this process of ridicule. The first also