We've written before about the American Small Business League, the organization dedicated to seeing that federal procurement quotas are enforced. As things stand right now, of course, they aren't: the amount of federal contracts that go to small businesses is lower than the legally mandated percentage, with over $5 billion in contracts being misreported as having gone to small businesses in 2007 alone; contract quotas for woman- and minority-owned businesses have been similarly not fulfilled.

The ASBL has not been hesitant about laying much of the blame for all of this at the feet of the Bush administration. At the end of last week, though, the group issued a press release preemptively attacking President-elect Barack Obama for allegedly planning to ignore this procurement issue and for generally turning his back on small business owners in favor of venture capitalists. Unmentioned by the press release, but probably not irrelevant to the charge that Obama is favoring venture capitalists over small business owners, is the fact that Obama's pick for head of the Small Business Administration is Karen G. Mills...a prominent venture capitalist

Lloyd Chapman, the group's founder and president, said in the release, "I predict President-elect Obama will not restore the Small Business Administration's budget and staffing as he promised during the campaign. I don't think he will do anything to stop Fortune 500 firms from receiving federal small business contracts. I believe he will sign legislation to create another colossal loophole that will divert billions more in federal small business contracts to billionaire venture capitalists. People need to start noticing the dramatic difference between what Obama said during the campaign and what he is actually doing."

The release pointed to the conspicuous absence of any supportive statements on Obama's famed change.gov transition Website. It also cited the $1 million in campaign contributions that his campaign received from the venture capital lobby, which, it argued, will lead Obama to support a bill called the Small Business Investment Expansion Act of 2007, which will allegedly provide a loophole to continue the flow of ostensibly small business contracts to large corporations.

On the one hand, it seems unfair to blame Obama for things he hasn't done (or hasn't not done) yet. That said, we are glad for the ASBL: it's good that someone is already dedicated to keeping the incoming administration honest on these crucial issues. If nothing else, it helps ensure that we and the rest of the press will be watching. And if Chapman and the ASBL turn out to be right, you can be sure that theirs will not be the only angry voice.

Source:  http://bizbox.slate.com/blog/2008/12/obama_accused_of_turning_back.php