(CNSNews.com) - A Republican victory in the midterm elections Tuesday could spell disaster for small and minority-owned businesses, a group that lobbies for small business owners charged Friday.

"There is a growing body of evidence that the Bush administration would like to eliminate affirmative action and all federal programs that benefit small, minority-owned, women-owned, and disabled-veteran owned firms," said the American Small Business League (ASBL).

"If Republicans retain control of Congress next week millions of dollars in federal small business contracting opportunities could be in jeopardy," the group said in a release.

ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said minority business owners "need to realize that the Republican Party has always been anti-affirmative action and intends to eliminate all federal programs for small and minority-owned firms."

Chapman encouraged small business owners to vote for Democrats because "otherwise, federal small business contracting will be in serious jeopardy until the end of the Bush presidency."

Chad Moutray, a chief economist for the Small Business Administration (SBA), told Cybercast News Service that small businesses have actually benefited in recent years from tax cuts and a growing economy.

One cut that increased the capital spending tax exemption for small businesses has encouraged business owners to invest more capital, Moutray said.

"When the economy's doing well, small businesses are doing well also," he said, adding that "the economy right now is doing relatively well."

Moutray said the Internet has also helped fuel the boom in small businesses. "Technology has created an environment where people can open up a business with very little start-up costs."

Statistics from the SBA show that self-employment grew at a faster-than-average pace during the first three years of the Bush administration, the most recent years for which data is available.

Between 1979 and 2003, the economy gained more than 74,000 new self-employed minorities every year on average. From 2000 to 2003, that average increase rose to 145,000 new self-employed minorities every year.

Between 1992 and 2000, an average of 345,000 new small businesses entered the market each year. Between 2000 and 2004, the average was 807,000 new small businesses added every year.

In addition to overall small business growth, government loans to minority small businesses have also grown under the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The government granted $576 million in loans to minority-owned small businesses in 1990. The amount was up to $3.63 billion in 2000 and grew to $5.14 billion in 2004.

Chapman, who described himself as "a Republican from Austin, Texas," told Cybercast News Service he doesn't believe the statistics.

"Those statistics come from the government," Chapman said, adding that they "have turned out to be completely false and totally fabricated and that's based upon the investigations of the [Government Accountability Office], the SBA Office of Advocacy and the SBA Office of the Inspector General."

Calling Bush the "most anti-small business president in my lifetime," Chapman said the numbers are inflated by changing definitions of what makes a small business and by the war in Iraq.

"Unfortunately, I think war is good for the economy," he said. "When the government is dumping that much money into the war, you're putting a lot of money out there into the economy and ... when the government spends more money it creates more jobs."