Connecting dots on loan for tea-partier, Toomey supporter

The stories didn't add up.

A small-business owner supporting Republican former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey for the U.S. Senate said she wants government to stop spending her tax dollars to help bail out companies.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, Toomey's Democratic foe in the Nov. 2 election, noted that U.S. Small Business Administration records showed the activist, Mary Ellen Jones, received a $25,000 loan in 2007 for her home-health-care company.

The truth yesterday - as often is the case in politics - was somewhere in the middle.

The business, HomeCareConnection, received a $25,000 loan from M&T Bank in 2007, with 50 percent guaranteed by the SBA, according to federal records.

Jones, a tea-party activist with the Delaware County Patriots, called the $25,000 a line of credit that she repays to the bank.

While SBA records list her name on the loan, Jones does not recall if M&T told her about the federal agency's involvement.

"If they ever told me, I totally forgot," she said. "A loan is not a bailout. You have to pay it back."