Cash about to flow for small business

I have had more calls than ever before this year from would-be entrepreneurs or from people who are already in business who are dealing with funding being choked off for their business.

We went through the situation back in May with Advanta, a big lender to small businesses, shutting down all lending. This week, we narrowly had a temporary stay of bankruptcy for CIT Group with a $3 billion bailout.

It is the canary in the coalmine that there is a real shortage of funding available right now to people who want to start a business or are operating a business. A lot of the community banks that small businesses have depended on as a reliable source of borrowing and lines of credit are short of money and have not been able to supply the funding for small business.

Well, now the U.S. Treasury Department is apparently days away, maybe not more than a week or two, from making $15 billion in funding available to small businesses. This was an initiative of President Obama to try to free up money for small businesses, but it took from this past winter – not too long after the president took the oath of office – until now to get all the procedures in place to have the $15 billion start to flow.

It means that if that you, as an entrepreneur or small business operator, found that the teller window was closed to you on borrowing through the Small Business Administration, it is opening up.

Now, $15 billion is a lot of money and, then again, not a lot of money when you consider the number of entrepreneurs out there who need access to funds to either open a business or grow a business. But it is something that should help the flow of capital for people who are small business owners.

Tune in to Clark Howard Saturdays and Sundays at noon and 4 p.m. ET on HLN