CUNA and NAFCU both complained about the exclusion of credit unions from President Obama's proposed $30 billion program to provide capital for community banks.
"Credit unions are outraged and baffled that the administration, by not endorsing greater business lending capacity for credit unions in its small business lending plan, would blatantly ignore the potential contribution credit unions could make toward national economic recovery," CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica said in a statement. He requested a meeting with President Obama to discuss the issue.
NAFCU President/CEO Fred Becker also raised objections.
"While we appreciate the president's efforts to reinvigorate small business lending, we are extremely disappointed that the administration continues to fail to recognize credit unions as part of the solution. While many regional and community banks took huge amounts of taxpayer-funded TARP bailout funds, credit unions did not create our current crisis, and we did not take any TARP bailout funds," he said in a statement.
Under the plan, which Obama first unveiled in last week's State of the Union speech and he elaborated on today, the government would redirect money from loans paid back under the TARP program to a fund that community banks with assets of less than $10 billion could borrow from.
