Petaluma, Calif. - Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D – 9) has offered her support for legislation that would infuse the state’s business community with billions of dollars in existing government infrastructure spending, save thousands of small businesses and create countless jobs.

H.R. 2568, the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act would end widespread fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs, while ensuring that the federal government is meeting its 23 percent small business contracting goal. The federal government has a congressionally mandated goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime contracts to small businesses. 

“As the daughter of a small business owner, I understand the importance of genuine, homegrown small businesses in the life of a community.  H.R. 2568 puts our nation’s small businesses on a level playing field in the fight for government contracts.  It’s time to stand up for small businesses that are the true engines of sustainable economic growth in our nation,” Representative Kaptur said.

Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations have shown that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to corporate giants. In Report 5-15, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA IG) referred to the problem as, "One of the most important challenges facing the SBA and the entire Federal government today." (http://www.sba.gov/IG/05-15.pdf)  

H.R. 2568 will stop large businesses from taking federal small business contracts by perfecting the Small Business Act's definition of a small business as "independently owned." The bill would prevent the federal government from awarding small business contracts to publicly traded firms, because they are publicly owned and would not qualify as "independently owned."

The American Small Business League has estimated that if passed, H.R. 2568 would redirect more than $100 billion a year in federal spending to the nation’s 27 million small businesses.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses are responsible for more than 90 percent of all net new jobs, 50.2 percent of the non-farm private sector workforce, 50 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 90 percent of exports and innovations. (http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs359.pdf)  

Ohio’s nearly one million small businesses are currently receiving a fraction of the dollars they should be receiving.  If signed into law, small businesses in the State of Ohio could see their volume of federal contracts increase exponentially.