(PRWEB) -- According to SBA spokesman Gary Jackson, as of March 1st, the SBA had received over 2500 comments from small businesses and small business groups across the country opposing an SBA proposal that would allow some of the largest firms in the country to continue to receive billions in federal small business contracts.

The SBA "grandfathering" proposal would allow corporate giants in the U.S. and Europe to keep their small business contracts for up to five more years.

The American Small Business League in Petaluma, California has successfully led the national campaign to defeat the SBA "grandfathering" plan. According to ASBL President Lloyd Chapman, "If the SBA grandfathering plan were to be implemented, small businesses across the country would loose over $100 billion dollars in federal small business contracts over the next five years. We are not going to let that happen."

Several government and independent studies have recently shown that current SBA policies have allowed billions in federal contracts Congress earmarked for small business have actually gone to firms like Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Raytheon, Titan Industries.

The SBA's own Office of Advocacy released portions of an independent study that found Burhmann, a Dutch firm with 26,000 employees worldwide, had received over $98 million dollars in U.S. Government small business contracts. The Center for Public Integrity recently released a study that found the Pentagon alone had awarded $47 billion dollars in small business contracts to some of the nations largest defense contractors.

Senator John Kerry weighed in on the issue when he recently called for an official investigation into fraud and abuse within the federal small business-contracting program in a letter to SBA Administrator Hector Barreto.

Despite the overwhelming opposition, the SBA plans to continue to take public comment on their "grandfathering" proposal until April 3rd.