Rural business loans lead to huge losses for USDA

Gilbert Gaul continued with The Washington Post's investigation of the USDA's farm subsidy loan program and found many shortcomings. Small companies that go out of business often default on their loans; since the 1970s, the loan program has seen nearly $1.5 billion in losses. Gaul used individual examples of USDA loans to illustrate broader problems within the program, such as financing jobs that have gone to illegal immigrants, "saving" jobs that would not be lost anyway, and lending money to businesses and people with bad credit who are likely to default on the loan.