The Texas Credit Union League has managed to get the 140,000-member Texas Association of Business to join CUNA's legislative drive on member business loans.
In e-mails and on its website, TAB, which serves as the state's Chamber of Commerce, said it was encouraging small businesses served by CUs to write Texas's two Republican senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, to vote for lifting the MBL cap.
At an April 22 press briefing, TAB President William Hammond extolled the CUNA-backed bill, urging a doubling of the cap to 25% and forecasting the congressional measure if enacted would free up $10 billion nationally for small business lending for CU members.
That would include $575 million in Texas, where he said more than 6,000 new jobs would be created. Hammond said the proposal to double the member business lending cap would spawn an additional 108,000 jobs or more nationwide.
The league said the TAB action underscores the " historic opportunity" CUs have to bolster CU lending powers.
--jrubenstein@cutimes.com
