Petaluma, Calif. - The following is a statement from American Small Business League (ASBL) President Lloyd Chapman:

Thousands of small businesses around the country could be saved from bankruptcy if just one mainstream journalist would ask Senator Barack Obama (D - IL) or Senator John McCain (R - AZ) this one question, "If you were elected President, would you allow Fortune 500 firms to continue to receive billions of dollars in federal small business contracts?"
 
In March of 2005, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) released the results of an extensive investigation into Bush Administration policies that have diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. Report 5-15 states:

"One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the entire Federal Government today is that large businesses are receiving small business procurement awards and agencies are receiving credit for these awards." (http://www.sba.gov/IG/05-15.pdf)
 
Report 5-15 is one of more than a dozen federal investigations that have found fraud and a multitude of other abuses in federal small business contracting programs.

These investigations have been coming out for more than five years now. This summer the Department of the Interior (DOI) OIG looked at .03 percent of DOI's contracts and found more than a dozen ineligible large businesses had received over $5.7 million in DOI small business contracts. What would they find if they looked at the other 99.7 percent? What would we find if we looked at 100 percent of the Defense Department's contracts?

Four federal officials have expressed to me that between $65 and $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts actually go to large businesses. I have seen more data on this than anyone in the country and I think they're right. That means by the time Bush leaves office, small businesses will have been cheated out of  $800 billion in federal contracts.  

The Bush Administration claims that the problem is caused by honest mistakes and miscoding errors on the part of contracting officials. They say federal contracting officials are confused and accidentally report contracts to firms like AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Home Depot, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Rolls-Royce as small business contracts.  The Bush Administration has been using that same ridiculous excuse for six consecutive years. 

Why is the pattern of miscoding and data entry errors always inflating the Bush Administration's small business contracting statistics and diverting government small business contracts to big businesses? This pattern is not random, so it must be intentional.

So far, not a single journalist has even asked Senator Obama or Senator McCain about this serious problem. One question to the Senators could help bring attention to this important issue and potentially redirect billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to legitimate American small businesses.

Petaluma, Calif. - While Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are presenting dueling economic recovery bills for the middle class, a bill has been floating around Congress for more than a year that could immediately infuse more money into the middle class economy than anything that has been proposed so far.

Draft legislation that was written by Senator Barbara Boxer (D - CA) and American Small Business League (ASBL) President Lloyd Chapman, could infuse up to $10 billion a month in federal funds back into the hands of middle class firms that are struggling to cope with the current economic catastrophe.

The draft legislation is titled, "the Small Business Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act," and is based on provisions of the original Small Business Act, which was passed in 1953.  The Small Business Act defines a small business as "independently owned" and precludes firms that are publicly owned or publicly traded from being considered small businesses for the purposes of government contracting. Based on the original Small Business Act, today the federal government has a small business-contracting goal of 23 percent or about $135 billion a year.

The new legislation simply states that the federal government can no longer report awards to publicly traded companies as small business awards. 

The legislation is in response to over a dozen federal investigations, which have found that the Bush Administration has diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to some of the largest corporations in the United States and Europe. 

In March of 2005, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) issued Report 5-15, which stated, "One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the entire Federal Government today is that large businesses are receiving small business procurement awards and agencies are receiving credit for these awards." (http://www.sba.gov/ig/05-15.pdf)

The General Accounting Office (GAO) first exposed the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to corporate giants in 2002. (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03704t.pdf) So far, no member of Congress other than Senator Boxer has even proposed legislation to address this problem.

In February, Senator Obama acknowledged the need to address the problem and released this statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."

This new legislation could solve the diversion of government small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and return billions of dollars in federal small business contracts back to the middle class economy.

Recently, Congress passed a $700 billion emergency bailout bill for Wall Street, now it's time to pass an emergency bailout bill for the middle class economy. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. This legislation is a free, easy and simple solution to the diversion of over $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts to large corporations and is based on existing federal laws and programs.

If this legislation is passed, we could immediately see up to $10 billion a month in additional federal funds flowing back into the small businesses where most Americans work.  This will have a more significant impact on our nation's middle class economy than anything that has been proposed by anyone in Congress including Senator Obama or Senator McCain.

This legislation would have an immediate and significant impact on our nation's middle class economy and there isn't one good reason why Congress shouldn't pass this legislation as soon as possible. 

Petaluma, Calif. - During the past eight years, the Bush Administration has dismantled virtually every economic program to assist small businesses along with all programs to assist firms owned by woman, minorities and veterans.

To date, Senator John McCain (R - AZ) has not voiced any opposition to the Bush Administration's anti-small business policies or discussed any plans to restore those programs in any of his speeches, press releases or on his website.

President Bush has slashed the Small Business Administration's (SBA) budget more than any other federal agency, down over 50 percent since he took office. (http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200511/sbabudget.html)  

Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have been released which have found the Bush Administration has diverted billons of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. (https://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html) CBS, ABC and CNN have all aired investigative reports that confirmed the findings of the federal investigations. (https://www.asbl.com/media2.php) 

Bush officials responded to the investigations by establishing a policy that allows Fortune 500 firms to continue to receive federal small business contracts until the year 2012 and by removing information from the government's vendor database that could be used to determine if a large business is misrepresenting itself as a small business. (https://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=596) 

Bush officials have closed the office at the SBA specifically designed to assist veteran-owned firms, (http://www.targetgov.com/Content.asp?id=2313) dismantled the Small Disadvantaged Business contracting program for minority-owned firms (http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/politics/2008/10/3/more_groups_react_to_bailout_bill.htm) and refused to implement a federal law passed more than seven years ago establishing a 5 percent contracting goal for woman-owned firms. (http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/extraedge/washingtonbureau/archive/2008/10/06/bureau1.html?market=kansascity) 

Bush officials also included language in the Wall Street bailout bill in Section 107 that allows the Secretary of the Treasury to waive any provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requiring contracting opportunities for woman-owned firms and minority-owned firms. (https://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1166) 

Senator McCain regularly panders to middle class voters and gives lip service to the vital role small businesses play in our nation's economy. In reality, in over two years of campaigning, he has never once mentioned his plans to restore the budget and staffing of the only federal agency established with the sole purpose of assisting America's 27 million small businesses, the Small Business Administration (SBA). 

Senator McCain's website doesn't contain a single word on restoring the SBA's budget and staffing or the economic programs administered by the agency to assist middle class small businesses and firms owned by women, minorities and veterans.

If elected, Senator McCain will almost certainly continue with Bush Administration and Republican Party plans to eliminate government economic programs to assist small business or try to close the SBA completely by combining it with the U.S. Department of Commerce.