Dear 2026 House and Senate Candidates,
Here is an issue that will win in 2026:
Expose the fact that billions of dollars in federal contracts, meant for small businesses, go to big businesses every year.
And reform and expand the Small Business Administration.
23% of federal contracts are supposed to go to small businesses.
They don’t.
Decades of Congressional investigations, SBA Inspector General reports, and our 100+ legal victories show, through fraud, bad policies, loopholes and lax oversight, the SBA falsifies compliance with the 23% goal, small businesses get around 3% of federal contracts, and 97% go to big businesses.
The SBA is the only agency dedicated to small businesses.
It should be reformed and greatly expanded.
23% of federal contracts would inject $345 billion into small businesses every year. They would create 2 million new jobs to perform those contracts. The stock market would rise, because it typically follows the monthly Jobs Report, and world markets would rise, because they typically follow our stock market.
Total federal spending is $6.8 Trillion/year.
26% ($1.5 Trillion) is spent on CONTRACTS for goods & services from private vendors.
23% of contracts ($345 Billion) is supposed to go to small businesses.
But big businesses get 97% of federal contracts ($1.455 Trillion), $300 Billion of which (20%) is supposed to go to small businesses.
That’s TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS over the past 20 years that went to big businesses, who don’t create new jobs to perform those contracts, not to small businesses, who DO create new jobs to perform those contracts.
Small businesses (34.7 million) are 99.9% of all businesses in America.
They create 98% of net new jobs, employ almost half of all workers, generate 44% of GDP, and pay the most federal income tax. (Big businesses, on the other hand, are one-tenth of one percent of all businesses, and a 2023 GAO study found that 34% of large, profitable corporations pay ZERO in federal income tax.)
And yet, every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has tried to shrink or close the SBA. (Only Clinton and Biden were a little better.)
President Trump has cut the SBA staff (which will shrink its budget), but he is giving it the $1.6 Trillion student loan portfolio to manage. We expect to hear, “Oops! That was a mistake. Let’s move ALL of the SBA’s functions into Treasury or Commerce,” and the small business contracting requirement will get lost in the fog of bureaucracy.
The future is big with promise.
Should 99.9% of all businesses get only 23% of federal contracts, or more?
Should women – half the population and owners of 42% of all businesses – get only 5% of federal contracts, the current goal, or more?
It’s easy to imagine candidates winning in 2026 if they run on a pro-small business platform, like the following:
- Investigate all of the above (through the Government Accountability Office, the House and Senate, the SBA Inspector General).
- Increase the small business contracting goal from 23% to 33%.
- Reform and expand the SBA.
- Change the definition of small business from 500 to 100 or less employees. (98% of all businesses have less than 100 employees. The average business has 10. Millions have no employees but the owner.)
- Make public the names of all firms that have been coded as small businesses.
- Support annual re-certification for small businesses with existing federal contracts.
- Introduce legislation modeled on H.R. 3184 from 2011 to remove large firms from small business contracting.
We hope you take our pro-small business platform and win in 2026. It is as non-partisan as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Call or write anytime for more information.
Sincerely,
Bruce de Torres
Director of Communications
American Small Business League
ASBL.com
415-404-7733, x101
bdetorres@asbl.com
Some sources:
Giant Corporations Are Reaping Billions From Federal “Small Business” Contracts – Mother Jones
The Senate Small Business Committee Chair in 2010 said that every 1% increase in federal contracts to small businesses creates 100,000 net new jobs.
View PDF Statement
SBA SMALL BUSINESS PROCUREMENT AWARDS ARE NOT ALWAYS GOING TO SMALL BUSINESS, REPORT NUMBER 5-14, FEBRUARY 24, 2005
asbl.com/wp-content/uploads/05-14.pdf
Live link: Microsoft Word - 05-14.doc
LETTER RE: LARGE BUSINESSES RECEIVE SMALL BUSINESS AWARDS, REPORT NUMBER 5-15 FROM HAROLD DAMELIN, SBA INSPECTOR GENERAL
asbl.com/wp-content/uploads/05-15.pdf
Live link: Microsoft Word - 5-15.doc