Mass. Sen. Markey, Rep. Neal call on feds to keep Springfield Small Biz Admin office open
A cadre of Massachusetts pols is calling the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration to keep the agency's satellite office in Springfield open and fully staffed after it was 'inexplicably" targeted for closing by the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency.
The office, currently located at 1 Federal St. in Springfield, was among 17 leases that the quasi-governmental DOGE terminated during a flurry of actions in March, MassLive previously reported. The lease on the 894-square-foot space had been set to end in June 2028.
The decision leaves Western Massachusetts, and the Pioneer Valley specifically, 'without access to vital SBA services and support,' Democratic U.S. Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren wrote to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler in a letter shared exclusively with MassLive.
'With this office closure, the Trump administration is continuing its nonsensical war against small businesses, dismantling the infrastructure that supports them and undermining the foundation of American entrepreneurship,' Markey and Warren wrote in the letter set to be made public on Wednesday.
They were joined on the letter by U.S. Reps. Richard Neal, D-1st District, and James P. McGovern, D-2nd District, whose constituents would be hit by the office's closing.
Loeffler, a former corporate executive, former Republican U.S. senator from Georgia, and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, has been making deep cuts at an agency that's a critical resource for small business owners across the country, The New York Times reported last week.
The changes, which include rolling back access to credit, have hit businesses run by women, immigrants, and people of color, as the Republican White House also rolls back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the government, the newspaper reported.
Markey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, has pressed Loeffler for information on the changes. But she has ignored those inquiries, the Malden Democrat told the newspaper.
'It's unconscionable that the Trump administration would treat such a vital agency so callously,' Markey told the Times.
'They're destroying the areas where they do have expertise and it's vital to invest, and then moving over areas where the agency is going to wind up overwhelmed,' Markey continued.
That includes inheriting a $1.66 trillion student loan portfolio from the mostly gutted U.S. Department of Education, according to the Times.
In their letter Loeffler, Markey and the other Bay State pols noted that the lease for the Springfield SBA office costs less than $61,000 a year, and that there are no longer any workers in that office because they've since left. And there are no current plans to relocate it or to hire new employees, they wrote.
Without an outpost in Springfield, the nearest extant SBA office is in Boston, they wrote.
Shuttering the Federal Street office 'will place a tremendous burden on small business owners, forcing them to take time away from their work and drive hours — in some cases a six-hour round trip," they wrote.
The half-century-old agency expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, swelling to 10,000 employees, which dropped to 6,000 under the former Biden administration, the Times reported. It was expected to contract more after that.
The agency's lending arm doled out $56 billion last year, and its flagship loan program is generally supposed to operate without a government subsidy, the newspaper reported.
In March, the Trump administration announced it was cutting the agency's staff by 43%, or about 2,700 employees. Current and former agency employees told the Times that the reductions were not organized.
In addition to their plea, the Massachusetts lawmakers also sent Loeffler a series of questions, giving the SBA until Friday to respond.
They include identifying the person, or persons, who approved the decision to spike the Springfield lease, the justification that was provided for that decision, whether there are plans to relocate it, and how the agency intends to serve small business owners in the western part of the state.
'The SBA's physical presence in Springfield, Massachusetts, ensures that entrepreneurs in underserved communities, particularly those in rural areas, have the resources they need to compete,' the lawmakers wrote.
'Closing the Springfield district office is a grave mistake that will hurt small businesses, harm job creation, and weaken the economic foundation of our region,' they wrote.
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Axios
37 minutes ago
- Axios
Republicans worry DOGE cuts will sink them in Virginia governor's race
Republicans are increasingly worried that budget cuts by Elon Musk 's DOGE could cost them dearly in November's vote for Virginia governor — an early electoral test of President Trump 's policies. Why it matters: Virginia has one of the highest percentages of federal employees in the country — more than 5% of the state's workforce by some estimates — and Republicans' internal polls are starting to show the damage from tens of thousands of federal layoffs. Zoom in: The University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center has projected that 32,000 jobs could be lost in the state this year, many of them federal positions. "Northern Virginia is filled with people who suffered the consequences of the DOGE cuts, and it's hard to see them being sympathetic to a Republican candidate who supports the DOGE cuts," said Whit Ayers, a veteran Republican pollster. "I suspect this will be an albatross around the neck of every Republican candidate this year," said Virginia Republican Bill Bolling, a former lieutenant governor. By the numbers: A private poll done for the campaign of a statewide Republican candidate suggested that just 39% of voters had a favorable view of DOGE. Nearly half of voters surveyed said they knew of someone impacted by the DOGE cuts, according to results shared with Axios. The poll showed Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears trailing former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) by single digits, outside the margin of error. Between the lines: DOGE could especially hurt Earle-Sears' campaign for governor in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, sections of the state where huge segments of the population are federal workers or have jobs tied to the government. Those areas played a role in Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's win in 2021, when he cut into Democratic margins and improved on the GOP's performance in 2017. (Virginia governors can't succeed themselves, so Youngkin isn't allowed to run again.) The D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia are home to upper- and middle-income voters, many of whom have ties to the government and are particularly likely to vote. Even non-federal workers in those areas could be impacted by DOGE, given the role federal funding plays in driving the local economy. Flashback: Republicans already are comparing DOGE's potential impact on Virginia's 2025 election to that of the GOP-led government shutdown of 2013, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of government workers being placed on unpaid leave. Democrats swept the state's highest offices that year — an outcome many GOP strategists blamed on the shutdown. "Washington, D.C., politics have long shaped the outcome of Virginia off-year elections," Virginia-based GOP strategist Jimmy Keady said in a text to Axios. "With over 230,000 Virginians working in or around the federal government, especially in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, any proposal that threatens those jobs — like DOGE — turns into a high-stakes issue," he added. The other side: Democrats are making DOGE a centerpiece of their election playbook. Virginia's Democratic Party has been running ads highlighting Earle-Sears' comments accusing the media of overhyping the impact of DOGE cuts. Other Democratic commercials are linking Republican state legislative candidates to Musk. Behind the scenes: Youngkin has taken steps to try to soften the blow to the state's federal workers, launching a " Virginia Has Jobs" initiative aimed at helping laid-off workers find new positions. Reality check: Republicans say Earle-Sears has an uphill climb, even without DOGE. In every election since 1977 besides one, the state has elected a governor from the opposition party to the sitting president. Top GOP officials — including some close to Trump — have criticized Earle-Sears and her campaign. Chris LaCivita, Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager and a longtime player in Virginia politics, has called her team " amateurs." What they're saying: Peyton Vogel, a spokesperson for Earle-Sears, rejected the notion that federal cutbacks could hurt the GOP candidate.
