Obama's Speech to Congress Will Ignore America's Top Job Creators

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 24, 2009

Petaluma, Calif. – President Barack Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night will cover a multitude of subjects from the economy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One subject that is almost certain to be ignored by President Obama are his plans to bolster the 26 million small businesses that create more than 97 percent of all new jobs.

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, firms with fewer than 20 employees comprise more than 90 percent of all American companies and are responsible for more than 97 percent of all new jobs. Small businesses also employ over 50 percent of America’s private sector workforce. (http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200708/data.html, http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/30/smallbusiness/job_creation.fsb/index.htm)

To date, President Obama has not proposed a single policy that would specifically direct any of the hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending to these small businesses.

President Obama has even refused to make good on a campaign promise to American small businesses to clean up rampant fraud and abuse in existing federal economic stimulus plans for small businesses.

During the last seven years, a series of more than 15 federal investigations have been released which all found Bush officials diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other large businesses. ABC, CBS and CNN all aired stories on the problem. (ABC, http://www.asbl.com/abc_evening_news.wmv; CBS, http://www.asbl.com/cbs.wmv; CNN, http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1170)

During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to address abuses in federal small business contracting programs when he released this statement in February 2008, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)

So far, President Obama has refused to offer any policies or legislation to stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to "corporate giants."

The American Small Business League (ASBL) projects that legislation or policy from President Obama that would stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses would create millions of jobs by redirecting over $100 billion a year in federal infrastructure spending back to the small businesses that create more than 97 percent of all new jobs.

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