All talk; little action.

That's the American Small Business League's verdict following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday.

According to a business league press release, Obama mentioned small businesses five times and jobs more than 30 times.

Yet, the league said, the Obama administration has consistently refused to honor its small business campaign promises, including pledges to:

- Stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.

- Restore the Small Business Administration's budget and staffing to pre-Bush administration levels. To date, the SBA's budget remains below Clinton- and Reagan- era levels, the business league reported.

- Restore cabinet level status for the administrator of the SBA. The business league said the SBA chief was removed from the Cabinet during George W. Bush's tenure.

"Small businesses create a vast majority of net new jobs, yet President Obama has given them virtually none of the stimulus money, while giving nearly all of the small business contracting dollars to Fortune 500 firms," said Lloyd Chapman, business league president.

"Until that ends, unemployment is not going to go down and the economy is not going to recover," Chapman added.

The business league endorsed Obama for president, but clearly the honeymoon is long over.

What do you think? If you own or manage a small business, please share with readers of this column how the president could best help your enterprise to succeed.

Kindly drop me a note at lruane@news-press.com.

Source: http://www.news-press.com/article/20110130/COLUMNISTS14/101300349/1014/business/Small-business-forum-at-FGCU