Petaluma, Calif. – Joe the Plumber talked about wanting to buy the company he was working for. If he was thinking about getting a Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed loan like thousands of small business owners do every year, he had better vote for Senator Obama. Senator McCain will maintain Bush Administration anti-small business policies, close the SBA, and end all federal programs designed for small businesses, and firms owned by women, minorities and veterans, including all the loan programs.

After Joe the plumber starts his own small business, he might want to think about trying to bid on federal small business contracts. The United States government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world. He could get a small business contract selling plumbing fixtures and supplies to the government or government contractors. He could get a service contract to do plumbing work on the various federal buildings in the area around Toledo, Ohio.

If Joe does start to try and bid on government small business contracts he is going to be stunned when he finds out that under current Bush Administration policy, he will have to compete head-to-head with Fortune 1000 corporations, their subsidiaries and thousands of other large businesses for even the smallest orders for goods and services. He might even find himself competing with the U.S. subsidiaries of many of the largest corporations in Europe.

I'm not sure who Joe should vote for if he wants to try and land government small business contracts, because neither Senator McCain, nor Senator Obama have come out publicly and said they would do anything to address this problem. There have now been 15 federal investigations released since 2003, which have found that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to Fortune 1000 firms. It has been estimated that up to $100 billion a year in government small business contracts actually go to many of the largest companies in the United States and Europe.

Today, it would be easier for Joe to find Jimmy Hoffa's body than it would be to find anything on either Senator Obama or Senator McCain's websites regarding their plans to stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.

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