You gotta walk the walk if you’re gonna talk the talk.

Washington does a lot of talking about the importance of small business. They like to point to how small business makes up 70 percent of the workforce and accounts for two out of every three new jobs. And they’re right. Small business is an important part of local economies.

The proposal put forth by Senator Richard Burr, a republican out of North Carolina, would consolidate the Small Business Administration, the Labor Department, and the Commerce Departments together in what would be called the Department of Commerce and Workforce. “The proposal is similar to one pitched two years ago by the White House, and Burr says it would save ‘staggering amounts of money every year’ by eliminating duplicative programs,” writes J.D. Harrison for the Washington Post.

I agree with Lloyd Chapman, head of the American Small Business League, cited by Harrison, when he warns that this is just another attempt to shutter one of the only government agencies in place to help the nation’s nearly 30 million small business owners.

Last week, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, suggested that extending unemployment benefits to the 1.3 million workers who fell off the unemployment roles this month, along with the 3.6 million more they expect to do the same later this year would cost somewhere around $25 billion a year. The comparatively small price tag for the SBA, seems well worth the resources for an organization established in 1953 to help small businesses and their associated communities grow. Particularly when the President and the Congress both point to small business as the job creation engine in the U.S.

The SBA doesn’t just guarantee $30 million in small business loans (and I think they should do more) every year. They offer education and resources to help small business owners that might not otherwise be able to successfully start and grow a healthy small business. Granted, there are challenges associated with the SBA, but I’m not convinced consolidating the organization into Commerce and Labor is the solution. I like acting Administrator Hulit, but a permanent administrator would be a good start.

There are many who disagree with me suggesting that Washington’s commitment to small business isn’t dependent on whether or not they have an agency with their name on it. True. Nevertheless, I worry that small business is about to get lost in the shuffle. I’m concerned this will send the wrong message to the nearly 30 million small business owners who need to have confidence in the future to stick their necks out and expand their businesses. The current administration along with the boys on the hill haven’t done a very good job over the last few years instilling that confidence in the job creation machine that is small business—hence the need for Reid’s $24 billion.

I need more convincing. How about you?

A debate about the wisdom of folding the U.S. Small Business Administration into the Department of Commerce has been simmering ever since the idea was proposed by President Reagan nearly three decades ago. The notion has remained on a back burner even with the current administration, as President Obama appointed SBA Administrator Karen Mills to his cabinet as part of a broader plan to merge SBA with several other agencies, but then failed to appoint a new administrator after Mills departed last August.

A year ago, we reported here on some small business advocates’ stances on the folding SBA into Commerce (hint: they’re vigorously opposed). And now a new proposal has brought the conversation back to a boil.

In late December, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) proposed legislation to form a single Department of Commerce and the Workforce that would encompass the functions of the Departments of Labor and the Commerce. One of five undersecretaries at the newfangled department would oversee all things small business, including the SBA.

In a press release, Burr said his proposal, which is cosponsored by Republican senators Dan Coats (Indiana) and James Inhofe (Oklahoma), is a “common sense approach” that would eliminate redundancies and save “staggering amounts of money every year.”

Burr said that a Department of Commerce and Workforce would:

"…be better positioned to promote economic growth and workforce protections. The Department would preserve the independent functions of both agencies and would not make changes to specific policy. In addition to combining Commerce and Labor programs and offices with substantially similar missions, the bill would combine the support and administrative offices of the two agencies and would eliminate wasteful and duplicative programs, according to recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The bill will also implement the Bowles-Simpson Commission's recommendation to place the Small Business Administration (SBA) with the Department of Commerce in the new consolidated agency."

Some see the bill as the death knell for SBA. The National Federation of Independent Business reported on its website this week that “some elements of the small-business community reacted very negatively to the proposal,” seeing it as a move that would force small business interests to take a back seat to those of large companies served by the same department. But NFIB reported that its North Carolina director calls Senator Burr a “top ally of small business.”

At McClatchyDC Renee Schoof reports that, while some small business advocates worry that Burr’s plan would eliminate SBA altogether, a spokesman for Burr claims the arrangement would actually “elevate” the interests of small business in the executive branch. And J.D. Harrison, small business reporter at theWashington Post, this week quoted American Small Business League president Lloyd Chapman, who says the merged department would “close the only tiny agency in government to assist the 28 million small businesses that are responsible for over 90 percent of net new jobs in America.”

On Fox News, Chapman called Burr’s proposed bill “the worst idea in the history of America” and described the elimination of the SBA as a power grab by Fortune 500 defense contractors to end federal programs for small businesses.

It seems a harmless enough word, “consolidation.” However, it has some small business leaders up in arms, as Republican lawmakers have quietly resurrected an effort to lump the Small Business Administration and two other agencies into a single federal department.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) recently introduced a bill that would tuck the SBA inside a consolidated agency including the Labor and Commerce departments. Called the Department of Commerce and the Workforce, the newly proposed agency would oversee most business-related regulations and resources for the federal government, and according to a summary on the bill, would maintain the core functions of the SBA.

Sen. Richard Burr says a bill he has put forward to merge the departments of Commerce and Labor and restructure the Small Business Administration would eliminate duplicated efforts and save the federal government money.

McClatchy reports that Burr introduced legislation in December that would join Labor and Commerce with the purpose of combining programs with similar missions such as job training and economic development. The new agency would be able to save on administrative functions, and Burr's bill would also eliminate or reduce funding for seven specific programs including one that provides job training grants to community colleges and one that helps find jobs for former convicts.

Burr, who is from Winston-Salem, would also house the SBA within the new "Department of Commerce and the Workforce" and, in total, streamline functions that cost taxpayers "staggering amounts of money every year," he said.

But the SBA restructuring has drawn criticism from the American Small Business League, which says the move would cripple the agency, which helps small businesses secure financing by backing loans issued by banks. That group said Commerce has always focused on big businesses, and putting the SBA under such an agency would undermine its mission.

A Burr spokesperson denied that, saying the bill would actually elevate the interests of the SBA in the executive branch and make it more effective.

Burr's bill has two Republican co-sponsors and is currently before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Like all bills in Congress it faces long odds against passage, but President Obama also endorsed combining the SBA with the Commerce Department during the last campaign.

McClatchy Washington Bureau

January 4, 2014

WASHINGTON —  Sen. Richard Burr, a former businessman in North Carolina, says he wants the federal government to put the Small Business Administration inside a new agency that combines the departments of Commerce and Labor.

Burr says the move would eliminate duplicative programs that cost the government “staggering amounts of money every year.”

One critic of Burr’s pending legislation, the American Small Business League, has been asserting that the proposal would close the Small Business Association, leaving many businesses without federal help to secure loans and get federal contracts.

The bill itself doesn’t call for elimination of the SBA, which was established under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. It would create a new Department of Commerce and the Workforce with a Cabinet-level secretary and five under-secretaries, including one in charge of small business who would oversee the SBA.

American Small Business League president Lloyd Chapman said that even if the bill doesn’t spell out an end of SBA, it would essentially close it. He said the legislation, which was introduced in December, was “essentially a resurrection” of a plan by former President Ronald Reagan in 1985 to close the SBA to save money.

“The Department of Commerce has always been there for large businesses,” he said.

The SBA provides loans, loan guarantees and other assistance to small businesses. By law it works with other agencies to give 23 percent of federal contracts to small businesses. Fraud issues at the agency include companies that misrepresent their eligibility for SBA services.

Combining the agencies won’t stop the fraud, Chapman said. “It will make it worse. It will be harder for small businesses to get more contracting, counseling and loan programs.”

Burr spokesman Robert Reid said Chapman was wrong.

"It’s not closing the Small Business Association. If anything, it’s elevating their interests in the executive branch," because an under-secretary would be in charge, he said. “We think it’s better for small businesses."

In an earlier statement, Burr said that the new combined department would keep the independent functions of Labor and Commerce and would not make policy changes. A summary of the bill specifies that the existing authority of the SBA also would be kept. Meanwhile, it would combine programs in the two departments that have similar missions and would combine support and administrative offices.

For example, the Labor Department’s job training programs would be combined with Commerce’s economic development work.

The bill also would eliminate or reduce funding for seven programs, including an international labor comparisons analysis and two programs under the Workforce Investment Act - a Career Pathways Innovation Fund, which provided job-training grants to community colleges, and the Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration program, which aimed to help find jobs for men who were released from prison or owed child support.

Programs to be cut could be added or subtracted if the bill advanced through Congress.

The new Department of Commerce and the Workforce also would have under-secretaries for economic analysis and the Census, international trade, labor, and patents and trademarks.

Burr declined to be interviewed. The future of his proposal is unclear. But of the more than 5,500 bills introduced by the 113th Congress, only 57 became law by mid-December.

Two other Republican senators, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Dan Coats of Indiana, signed on as cosponsors.

Burr’s legislation was sent to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where it could be debated and passed on for a full Senate vote or left to die of neglect. A committee staffer said Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., the chairman, hadn’t decided what to do with it yet.

Burr worked in sales for 17 years for Carswell Distributing, a national wholesale commercial products company based in his hometown of Winston-Salem. He started the job after he graduated from Wake Forest University and continued there until he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994.

Gregg Thompson, the North Carolina director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said his staff hadn’t had time over the holidays to look at Burr’s legislation, but said: “Sen. Burr has a 100 percent voting record every year from the NFIB and is probably one of the best friends of small business.”

President Barack Obama, during his last campaign, also proposed some streamlining that would have combined the SBA with the Commerce Department.

The administration hasn’t named a new SBA administrator since the previous one, Karen Mills, announced her resignation nearly 11 months ago. A White House spokeswoman would say only that the acting administrator, Jeanne Hulit, who has been in charge after Mills left in August, has been doing a good job.

Some of the recommendations in Burr’s bill also are drawn from suggestions from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the Obama-appointed deficit-cutting Bowles-Simpson Commission.

The commission recommended putting SBA in the Commerce Department. Its leaders were former University of North Carolina system president and former SBA chief and Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming.

Burr’s plan also would transfer the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from the Commerce Department to the Department of the Interior.