PETALUMA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--President Obama’s plan to close the Small Business Administration (SBA) could be coming soon. SBA Administrator Karen Mills resigned February 11 and announced on July 18 that she would leave the agency at the end of August.

President Obama has not even mentioned a replacement for Mills.

American Small Business League (ASBL) President Lloyd Chapman predicted President Obama would try and close the SBA under the guise of combining it with the Department of Commerce on November 25, 2008. As Chapman predicted, President Obama announced his plan to essentially close the SBA by combining it with the Department of Commerce in January, 2012.

President Ronald Reagan made two failed attempts to close the SBA by combining it with the Department of Commerce.

President Obama claims combining the SBA with the Department of Commerce will save $300 million a year, roughly the cost of one jet fighter. At the same time President Obama wants to close the SBA to save $300 million a year, he has proposed spending $7 billion to build power plants in Africa under a program called “Power Africa.”

President Obama’s alleged $300 million savings by closing the SBA could be funded for over 23 years by the $7 billion he intends to spend in Africa. ASBL believes the real reason President Obama wants to close the SBA is to cover up the rampant fraud and abuse that has been uncovered in numerous investigative reports by the media and by investigations by the SBA’s own Inspector General. Every year of the Obama administration SBA Inspector General, Peg Gustafson, who was appointed by President Obama, has named the diversion of billions in federal small business contracts to corporate giants as the most rampant problem at the SBA.

President Obama recognized the magnitude of the fraud and abuse of the SBA in February of 2008 when he stated, “It’s time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.”

President Obama has refused to adopt any policies or legislation to end the abuses of the SBA. President Obama did just the opposite by removing critical data from the government’s database of suppliers that has made it easier for large businesses to hijack federal small business contracts and harder for federal investigators to determine if a firm is a legitimate small business or a subsidiary or division of a small business.

As a result, the most recent data from the Federal Procurement Data System indicates, of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts in FY2012, 71 are large businesses. Closing the SBA would make all the fraud and abuse uncovered at the SBA moot point and avoids any embarrassment for President Obama as the next election cycle approaches.

For the ASBL’s latest video, click here.