$200K loan helped Senate president’s business hang on

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A more than century-old scrap metal business owned by the Minnesota Senate president was among hundreds of thousands of businesses nationwide to get a boost from the Treasury Department’s Payroll Protection Program.

GOP state Sen. Jeremy Miller of Winona says Miller Scrap, which he co-owns, got a $200,000 loan that helped the business through the worst of the pandemic downturn without laying off a single employee or cutting benefits.

The government on Monday identified some 650,000 mostly small businesses and nonprofits that applied for taxpayer money from a program designed to soften job losses from the coronavirus.