[IAmEveryone]

The idea was that banks had the experience, resources, and (most importantly) existing relationships with the recipients of these loans.

The loan conditions and availability is tied to the magnitude of loss the business is experiencing, Then, the business' ability to repay must also be appraised. That's the bread-and-butter business for banks. The IRS has been gutted over the last decades, and I doubt they have the manpower and information needed.

The major problem was that banks didn't really have any incentives to do this work: to make them care about accuracy, you want them to share in any potential losses. But the potential for losses obviously scares them away. You need some fee structure, and there might only be a narrow sweet spot where everyone's interests align.

The second possible improvement would seem to be tighter rules on the sort of business that should preferentially receive help. Small retail and service businesses would seem to be both popular and possibly most effective in terms of jobs/money. At the other end of the spectrum, a single-proprietor business owning and running a dozen apartment buildings with maybe one or two clerical workers should just go bust––the owner loses out but the buildings aren't going to go away,