The government gave various small banks $2.1 billion in government cash to boost small-business lending; however, the banks used the money to repay bailout funds from the financial crisis, an article in The Wall Street Journal said. 

Among the 332 banks participating in a small-business lending program run by the U.S. Treasury, 137 used more than half of about $4 billion disbursed by the program to help fund their exits from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to a new report by the special inspector general for TARP.