Petaluma, Calif. - There is no way to know exactly how many billions of dollars in federal contracts American small businesses lost during the eight years of the Bush Administration.
During President Bush's tenure, administration officials went to extreme lengths to make it difficult, if not impossible to obtain the government's records on small business contracting.

Under Bush, the United States Department of Justice went to federal court on several occasions to fight Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the specific names of firms that had received federal small business contracts.

Since 2003, 15 federal investigations have found that Bush Administration officials have diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other large businesses in the U.S. and Europe. (https://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)

In 2005, the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General released Report 5-15, which stated, "One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration 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)

Based on an evaluation of all available federal contracting data, the American Small Business League (ASBL) estimates that the Bush Administration diverted over $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts to large businesses.

In addition to diverting more than $800 billion in federal small business contracts to corporate giants, President Bush has attempted to systematically dismantle every federal program designed to assist small businesses including those firms owned by women, minorities and veterans.

For eight years, Bush Administration officials refused to implement a federal law establishing a 5 percent federal contracting goal for woman-owned firms. Bush officials at the SBA closed the office to assist veteran-owned firms and laid off the vast majority of staff designated to assist minority-owned firms.

Additionally, Bush cut the SBA's budget and staffing to the point that the agency could barely function. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, hundreds of the SBA's most experienced staff were laid off.

Considering the volume of federal small business contracts that have been diverted to large businesses, and the lost contracting opportunities for small businesses and firms owned by women, minorities and veterans, small businesses may have lost over $1 trillion in federal contracts during the Bush Administration.

Small businesses may not fair much better under President Obama. To date, President Obama has not proposed a single policy to stop the flow of federal small business contracts to corporate giants. Even worse, President Obama appears to favor a change in federal law that will divert federal small business contracts to firms controlled by some of the nation's wealthiest venture capitalists.

If President Obama does follow in George Bush's footsteps and enact legislation and policies that will divert even more government small business contracts to large businesses and wealthy investors, he will most likely do just what President Bush did and talk about what a valuable resource small businesses are to our nation's economy while he is doing it.

Petaluma, Calif. - President-elect Barack Obama and the new 111th Congress will soon be rolling-out an economic stimulus plan. The stimulus package will no doubt cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and there is no guarantee it will achieve it's goal of rescuing most Americans from the failing economy.

One free, easy and guaranteed method to stimulate the U.S. economy is to channel federal infrastructure funds to our nation's nearly 27 million small businesses. U.S. Census Bureau statistics show 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees. These firms create over 85 percent of all new jobs and employ over 56 percent of all private sector workers.

So far President-elect Obama has completely ignored this simple, quick and cost effective method of stimulating the national economy.

In a recent appearance on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, two of America's top economic experts, Laura Tyson and Carly Fiorina agreed that directing federal infrastructure funds to small businesses was a foolproof and easy way to create millions of jobs and immediately boost the failing economy. Tyson is the former Chair of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration and is currently an economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama. Fiorina is the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and McCain campaign economic advisor.

This method of stimulating the nation's failing economy would be virtually free to taxpayers and would have an immediate positive effect on the economy.  It could be implemented immediately, because it would be based on existing federal programs designed to direct federal funds to small businesses. The Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997 stipulates that a minimum of 23 percent of all federal prime and sub-contracts be awarded to small businesses.

Since 2002, over a dozen federal investigations have found fraud, abuse, loopholes, and a blatant lack of oversight by federal officials, which have allowed billions of dollars in federal contracts earmarked for small businesses to wind-up in the hands of Fortune 500 firms. Additionally, ABC, CBS and CNN, along with most of the nation's largest newspapers have reported the dramatic abuses in these programs.

It has been estimated that as much as $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts are diverted to Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses. If these funds were redirected to the middle class economy as Congress originally intended with the passage of the Small Business Act of 1953, there would be a significant, undeniable and immediate impact on the national economy.

If President-elect Obama is searching for the most cost effective and immediate way to stimulate America's faltering economy, legislation to direct federal infrastructure funds to America's small businesses should be implemented as soon as possible.

Petaluma, Calif. – Considering the dire state of our nation’s economy, President-elect Barack Obama was expected to support existing federal small business programs and propose new policies that would stimulate the middle class economy and create jobs for our nation’s 27 million small businesses.

There appears to be a significant disconnect between President-elect Obama’s campaign promises to American small businesses and the actual policies he is proposing.

In February, Obama released the following statement, “Over half of all Americans work for a small business. Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.” (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)

Any mention of President-elect Obama’s February statement, or specific plans to stop the flow of federal small business contracts to “corporate giants” are conspicuously absent from the Obama-Biden Transition Team website, www.change.gov.

Change.gov and the Obama-Biden campaign website, www.barackobama.com, significantly minimize the importance of our nation’s small businesses, which employ more than 50 percent of all Americans.

Less important topics such as "Rural" and "Service" received major headings under the issues section of the Obama-Biden campaign website while issues relating to America’s small businesses, which create over 80 percent of all new jobs were relegated to the site’s lower priority people section between "Seniors" and "Sportsmen.” (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/sbhome/)

The American Small Business League (ASBL) is predicting the Obama Administration may be preparing to roll out policies and legislation that could have a severe negative impact on the small businesses he acknowledged were the “backbone of our nation’s economy.”

From January 2001 to October 2008, Obama received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the venture capital industry, according to Maplight.org.  The site also indicates that the venture capital industry contributed heavily to senior Democratic leadership. (http://www.maplight.org/map/us/interest/F2500) 

The ASBL predicts President-elect Obama will support H.R. 3567, the Small Business Investment Expansion Act of 2007, which will create a new loophole in federal contracting law that will allow our nation’s wealthiest investors to receive billions of dollars in federal small business contracts. The venture capital industry has spent millions of dollars lobbying Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to have the legislation passed.

“I predict President-elect Obama will not restore the Small Business Administration’s budget and staffing as he promised during the campaign. I don’t think he will do anything to stop Fortune 500 firms from receiving federal small business contracts,” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. “I believe he will sign legislation to create another colossal loophole that will divert billions more in federal small business contracts to billionaire venture capitalists. People need to start noticing the dramatic difference between what Obama said during the campaign and what he is actually doing.”

Petaluma, Calif. - President-elect Barack Obama has apparently decided to drop a campaign promise to America's 27 million small business owners to stop the diversion of billions of dollars in government small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. Obama's February 26th pledge to address the problem has been dropped from the Change.gov website.

In February, President-elect Obama issued the following statement, "Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)

Obama reiterated his pledge to address the problem in his Small Business Emergency Rescue Plan, which was released on October 10th.  The Obama Small Business Rescue Plan was included in the Obama-Biden campaign website but was subsequently dropped from the Change.gov website. (http://obama.3cdn.net/d14eb1b3649c4d6745_0evzmv02w.pdf)

Now, any reference to Obama's campaign promise to "end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants" has disappeared completely.

Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations have found that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to Fortune 500 firms, their subsidiaries and other clearly large firms in the United States and even Europe. The story has been covered by nearly every major newspaper in the nation, over a hundred radio stations, and by ABC, CBS and CNN. (ABC, https://www.asbl.com/abc_evening_news.wmv; CBS, https://www.asbl.com/cbs.wmv; CNN, https://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1170)  

Some of the firms that have been exposed as recipients of federal small business contracts include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computers, Rolls-Royce, Home Depot, Xerox, John Deere and British Aerospace (BAE).

Report 5-16 from the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) found that large businesses had received government small business contracts through, "vendor deception" and "false certifications". (http://www.sba.gov/IG/05-16.pdf)

In 2005, the 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)

"Over 80 percent of the new jobs in this country are created by our nation's 27 million small businesses, and those small businesses employ over 56 percent of all Americans. If President-elect Obama is serious about helping our nation recover from this economic crisis, he needs to stop Fortune 500 firms from hijacking billions of dollars in federal small business contracts," American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman said.  "The surprisingly low priority Obama has given small business issues on his websites is a clear indication this is not going to be a pro small business administration."