A loan program called “Big Missouri” is much smaller than it should be. In fact it’s one of the nation’s most underused low-interest borrowing programs.

In a day when businesses, farmers and local governments desperately need access to cash, that’s unacceptable. Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel has put forth good ideas for broadening the program to help create jobs and fund local infrastructure projects. The legislature should act quickly to write his measures into law.

Under the Big Missouri program, the treasurer’s office deposits money with community banks at below-market rates. Banks pass along the savings — usually about 2 to 3 percent — to eligible applicants.

The state is authorized to loan up to $720 million under the program. But less than a third of that amount is being used. Zwiefel blames bureaucratic and statutory hurdles for discouraging lending.

He wants to cut the time needed to approve a loan from a month or more to one week. And he seeks to make the loans available to businesses with up to 100 full-time employees instead of 25, the current limit.

Zweifel would free up loan funds for farmers, alternative energy projects and local governments wishing to embark on infrastructure projects.

Zweifel is also asking the legislature to change a law that caps the rate the state can receive on deposits in community banks. Deposits by the state can receive a return no higher than the rate of the treasury yield, which lately has been as low as a fifth of 1 percent.

The state’s bankers are understandably reluctant to lose the cap. But only one other state — Alabama — imposes such a limit.
In Missouri, the cap is estimated to cost taxpayers about $10 million a year. That’s another unacceptable situation that lawmakers should make haste to remedy.