No matter who gets elected President in November, an advocate for small business expects there will be little change in Washington policy toward small business and federal contracts.

“You’ve got this pool of around $150 billion in federal contracts that’s supposed to be going to middle class firms and small businesses,” says Lloyd Chapman, president of the American Small Business League, based in Petaluma. “And yet because there’s really no one to defend it, you’ve got Fortune 500 corporations trying to raid it.”

Mr. Chapman has battled the Bush Administration for years over how billions of dollars in federal contracts supposedly earmarked for small business have, he says, actually gone to the largest corporations.

But neither Mr. Obama not Mr. McCain has yet to speak out, Mr. Chapman says.

“It’s all about money,” he says. Mr. Chapman says venture capitalists have showered cash on top Democratic leaders buying their silence on the issue.

(Lloyd Chapman talks about the candidates and small business in today’s CVBT Audio Interview. Please left-click on the link below to listen or right-click to download the MP3 audio file to your computer or mobile media gadget.)

“People just need to realize that this is affecting you no matter what you do for a living,” Mr. Chapman says. “When the government pulls a hundred billion dollars a year out of the middle class economy, it’s going to affect you and your family.”

How many small businesses are there in the U.S.? Maybe not as many as the politicians say.

Mr. McCain is among those saying there are 23 million small businesses in the United States.

But if you look at a small business as one that has a payroll, that figure reduces to under a million, according to FactCheck.org, which describes itself as a “nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics” and which is funded by the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

The vast majority of “small businesses” have no employees other than the owner, who might also be the chief cook and bottle washer – or a physician, attorney or other professional.

FactCheck analyzes the claims in the campaign and points to a current one about small business.

“McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would raise tax rates for 23 million small-business owners. It's a false and preposterously inflated figure,” FactCheck says.

“We find that the overwhelming majority of those small-business owners would see no increase, because they earn too little to be affected,” it says.

What do the candidates’ websites say about their stands on small business?

Mr. Obama “will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation,” the candidate’s website says.

It also says Mr. Obama will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. “Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation,” it says.

Mr. Obama would support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. The federal government would invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country, .

Mr. McCain’s website makes no highlighted mention of his specific plans for small business or the Small Business Administration, but does offer some of his past remarks.

In June, for example, he told a meeting of the National Federation of Independent Businesses that he would push for a two-tier income tax, part of what he called “a simpler, a flatter, and a fair tax code.” He also supported NAFTA, bemoaned the loss of “millions” of jobs, said he would improve federal aid to the unemployed, “break down trade barriers,” cut the corporate tax rate, and “keep the current low income and investment tax rates.”