A forgivable small business loan program rolled out by former Republican Gov. Chris Christie and his wife six weeks ago to offer a lifeline to businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic has gotten thousands of applicants – a scenario playing out with similar state and federal programs.

Known as the “New Jersey 30-Day Fund,” the aid program has approved 120 applicants, many of them struggling businesses made to shut down or scale back operations during the pandemic and ensuing state shutdowns enacted to stop or slow down the spread of the virus.

“We’ve already distributed $350,000 … $250,000 we’re sitting on right now, and we’re going to have money coming in … that people committed,” former First Lady Mary Pat Christie, said during a Tuesday morning press conference.

All told, that’s $800,000 of financial commitments, Mary Pat said, as they pursue a fundraising goal of $1 million.

The forgivable loans are for up to $3,000, with eligibility for businesses with between three and 30 employees that are owned and operated by a New Jersey resident, and have been in operation for at least a year.

But more than 3,000 applicants for business aid means that the fund would have to raise upward of $9 million, Chris Christie said, in order to make sure they all get relief.

That shortfall has played out with a variety of COVID-19 relief programs, such as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s half a trillion-dollar Paycheck Protection Program, and a variety of grants and low-interest loans run by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

In the case of the NJEDA programs, there were thousands more applicants than funds available, while many small business owners complained they could not get a hold of any federal PPP dollars.

Under the PPP program, businesses receive low-interest loans of up to $10 million, which are forgiven if the business uses the money on expenses such as payroll, rent and utilities during the pandemic.

Still, more than $17 billion has been awarded to New Jersey businesses, SBA officials said, with the application deadline for Round 2 of the program extended from June 30 to Aug. 8.

As of July 11, the NJEDA had awarded or paid out nearly $24 million to 7,038 companies under the grant program, which clocks in at a more than $50 million pot of money. Meanwhile, as of July 14, the state agency approved more than $4 million of its low-interest pandemic relief loans to 60 separate businesses, out of the $10 million the state Legislature approved.

Christie was highly critical of the NJEDA program and how it was handled, accusing Gov. Phil Murphy of prioritizing public workers and not furloughing or laying off any of them off for months in order to save money during the pandemic.

Those furloughs finally went into effect in June, under an agreement struck between the Murphy administration and the state’s largest public worker’s union, the Communications Workers of America New Jersey.

“In the end, this has not been shared sacrifice,” Christie said. “It’s a policy decision that was made, but you could have shared the sacrifice a little bit more and put more money into the EDA and got those loan programs to be much more robust.”

“These are all decisions. These don’t happen by accident,” the former governor added. “Believe me, I sat in that job for eight years.”

“Governor Christie should be the last person to talk about supporting small businesses given his support for lavish corporate tax incentives that helped well-connected insiders and corporate players enrich themselves at the expense of our small business owners,” Alyana Alfaro, a spokesperson for Murphy, said in a statement.

“The former governor also seems to think that laying off middle-class workers providing core services somehow benefits New Jersey families, when in fact the opposite is true.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:48 a.m. EST on July 22, 2020, to include comments from Gov. Phil Murphy’s office.