Press Release

Small Business Group Launches Campaign Opposing Obama's Plan To Wind Down Federal Small Business Programs

American Small Business League

January 16, 2012

Today the American Small Business League (ASBL) is launching a national campaign to educate the media, the public and members of Congress about the negative ramifications of President Obama’s plan to combine the Small Business Administration with the Department of Commerce, which will ultimately lead to the elimination of federal small business programs.

On September 16, 2008, in November 2010 and August 2011, ASBL president Lloyd Chapman predicted that Obama would try to eliminate federal small business contracting programs by combining the SBA with the Dept. of Commerce.

Combining agencies is a typical Washington technique to eliminate an agency that you could not get public support to eliminate— the budget for the agency that you want to get eliminated will slowly be zeroed out and the staff quietly laid off. This avoids any direct confrontation with the public, media or Congress, and allows Washington bureaucrats to eliminate agencies that the public and Congress might not normally agree to get rid of.

The ASBL believes that saving $3 billon over the next decade is infinitesimal — a drop in the ocean — especially when it involves winding down the only agency that exists to support small businesses.

“I can’t believe anybody in the media bought this,” Chapman said. “I can’t remember any president in recent history holding a national press conference talking about $3 billion in savings over 10 years. To put that in perspective, that’s approximately .0005 percent of what the Pentagon is projected to spend over the next decade. If President Obama were serious about streamlining government, he wouldn’t start with one of the smallest agencies in Washington. He’d start with one of the largest agencies, where the majority of federal dollars are spent.”

The ASBL is calling on the public, members of Congress and the media to try to bring attention to what they believe is the Obama administration’s real goal with the proposal to merge six federal agencies, which is to eliminate federal small business contracting programs.