PETALUMA, Calif., Feb. 24, 2016/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fortune 500 firms and many of the largest firmsin the world will continue to be allowed to receivebillions in federal small business contracts if a new bill is passed inCongress to modernize the Small Business Act. 

The House Small Business Committee has unanimously passed H.R. 4341, the "DefendingAmerica's Small Contractors Act of 2016."  The bill now goes onto the full house for approval. The bill states it would modernize the SmallBusiness Act and implement "common sense" reforms.

Beginning in 2003, the GAO uncoveredover 5,300 large businesses that were receiving federal small businesscontracts. Since then, over two dozen federalinvestigations and investigative reports have uncovered fraud and abuse infederal small business programs. H.R. 4341 does not address any of the fraud, abuseand loopholes that have been uncovered in those investigations.

In 2005, the SBA Inspector General released Report5-15 that stated, "One of the most important challenges facing theSmall Business Administration (SBA) and the entire Federal Government today isthat large businesses are receiving small business procurement awards andagencies are receiving credit for these awards."

President Obama acknowledgedthe magnitude of the fraud and abuse in federal small business contractingprograms when he released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small businesscontracts to corporate giants."

NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, RTTV, Fox News and CNBC haveall reported on the fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs.

In May of 2015, Pubic Citizen released their investigativereport on the issue titled, "Slighted." Public Citizen accused the federal government of using accounting tricks to "create false impression thatsmall businesses are getting their share of federal procurement money."

The American Small Business League (ASBL) released their annualanalysis of federal contracting data for fiscal year 2015. Information obtained from the Federal Procurement Data System indicated thefederal government counted contracts to 151 Fortune 500 firms as small businesses contracts infiscal year 2015.

In recent years some of the firms that have received federalsmall business contracts include, Chevron, Apple, Microsoft,General Electric, Home Depot, AT&T, CVS, UPS, Bank of America, WellsFargo, Target, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Oracle, Raytheon,Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and British AerospaceEngineering (BAE.)

ASBL President LloydChapman stated, "This is a perfect example of why so many Americans nolonger trust the government. Congress will pass this bill to 'modernize theSmall Business Act' and adopt 'common sense' reforms but they will still allowFortune 500 firms to receive federal small business contracts. It's absolutelyastounding."

The American Small Business League plans to release a full-length documentary on fraud and abuse infederal small business programs this summer.

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