Testifying recently before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, New Mexico Kia dealer and American International Automobile Dealers (AIADA) member Bob Cockerham told Senators that an inability to secure loans to buy vehicles from manufacturers was forcing him to lay off workers, close dealerships, and sell his home.

During the hearing, Perspectives from Main Street on Small Business Lending, the committee heard from struggling small business owners who asked the government to work to make financing available for small businesses.

"Consistently we have seen the large, 'too big to fail' corporations literally given billions of taxpayers' dollars in bailouts, while the small businesspeople, like ourselves, have received, and asked for, nothing," said Cockerham in his written testimony. "The greed of Wall Street is driving America's small businesspeople into bankruptcy." Cockerham, who is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has reduced his workforce from 80 people to 17, and fears that without sufficient floorplan financing, he and his wife Mary will have to declare personal bankruptcy.

In his testimony, Cockerham reiterated the requests made by AIADA Chairman Russ Darrow earlier this month in a letter sent to President Barack Obama. He asked for readily available retail credit to help generate automobile sales and operating capital loans to help dealers meet cash flow requirements, such as payroll. He also asked that the Small Business Administration loan guaranty program be further enhanced to include an updated size standard in order to provide working capital for auto dealers and be allowed to include floorplan financing. Said Cockerham: "The average floorplan loan is approximately $4.9 million. If the group of lenders continues to shrink, or they put more restrictions on credit, the result is simple. Dealers cannot buy what they cannot finance."

Thanks in part to inaccessible financing, approximately 1000 dealerships closed last year and 50,000 jobs were lost. "This is not just a Bob and Mary problem," Cockerham told the hearing room. "Thousands of businesses are in peril and we need some help."