The appointment of a venture capitalist to head the SBA and apparently missing statements from his campaign website are leading some to doubt Obama's pledge to small business owners.

According to the American Small Business League, President Obama is likely to support a change to the federal definition of small business as "independently owned."

This move would open the door for others - specifically venture capital firms and larger corporations - to garner government contracts intended for small businesses.

"Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations that have uncovered billions of dollars in federal contracts intended for small businesses actually wound up in the hands of Fortune 500 firms," says the organization.

The ASBL worries that Obama's former pledge to end the awarding of these contracts to "corporate giants" will be forgotten and small businesses could lose up to $100 billion a year in projects. The organization claims some statements about Obama's small business agenda were removed from his website.

Already feeling battered, the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index fell to the second lowest reading in the survey's 35-year history in December.