FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 15, 2010
Petaluma, Calif. - On Wednesday, April 14, the American Small Business League (ASBL) filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Army under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. The Army is refusing to release information regarding the compliance of its prime contractors with small business subcontracting goals. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/20100414_complaint_mantech.pdf)
The ASBL originally requested the most recent quarterly subcontracting reports for contracts awarded by the Army to ManTech Telecommunications. Prime contractors are required to produce subcontracting reports for each contract awarded by the federal government.
The ASBL maintains that the Pentagon's refusal to release information regarding prime contractor compliance with small business subcontracting goals is a further indication that the Pentagon is falsifying compliance with its small business contracting goals.
The Small Business Act requires that a minimum of 23 percent of the total value of all government contracts go to small businesses. The most recent information available indicates that the Obama Administration is diverting billions of dollars a month in government small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms like: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Dell Computer, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce, French giant Thales Communications, Ssangyong Corporation headquartered in South Korea, and the Italian firm Finmeccanica SpA. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/20090825TopSmallBusinessContractors2008.pdf)
The ASBL maintains that the Pentagon's refusal to release this information is a clear indication that it has something to hide.
"The Obama Administration is withholding these subcontracting reports because it knows that these reports will show the federal government and prime contractors are falsifying their small business contracting numbers," ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said.
Despite promises of increased transparency, the Obama Administration is refusing to release a wide range of data on small business contracting programs such as: agency phone records, the actual names of the recipients of federal small business contracts, the specific names of federal contracting officials that have awarded small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms, the names of specific individuals at Fortune 500 firms that have misrepresented their firms status as a small business, and SBA bonus recipients.
Wednesday's action is the third lawsuit filed by the ASBL since late March. The ASBL's efforts to expose fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs have recently been chronicled by articles in the Washington Post, HispanicBusiness Magazine and Andrew Beitbart's BigGovernment.com. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103341.html; http://63.149.249.152/news/newsbyid.asp?idx=187049&page=1&cat=&more#; http://biggovernment.com/ldoan/2010/04/14/small-businesses-sue-government-goliath/)
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Contact:
Christopher Gunn
Communications Director
American Small Business League
cgunn@asbl.com
(707) 789-9575
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Small Businesses Sue Government Goliath
by Lurita Doan
A small business association called the American Small Business League (ASBL) did something unexpected this week. ASBL President, Lloyd Chapman, decided to take the Obama Administration to court and expose the growing divergence between the Administration’s stated goals to meet the federal statutes for small business participation versus the Obama Administration’s total failure on federal, small business contracting.
By any measure, Obama’s record on federal, small business contracting has been abysmal. The recent, National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) Small Business Economic Trends Report confirms that “for small business owners, 2009 ended with a thud.”
Many factors have contributed to the disaster in small business contracting. A rush to push the $787 billion Stimulus funding quickly gave federal contracting officers no real options other than to dump the additional federal money onto existing federal contracts that are held by the largest companies. There just was not enough time to conduct procurements to encourage the participation of small businesses. So, small businesses received very little of any of the new federal business or the loans anticipated from the $787 billion Stimulus spending, even though President Obama and Democrats in Congress stated that awards to small businesses were the primary goal.
Worse yet, Obama decided to delay the long-overdue need to increase the number of federal contracting officers that are in critical short supply. Ten years ago, each federal contracting officer was responsible for an average of $300 thousand dollars of federal contracts. Today, each federal contracting officer is responsible for $50 million dollars in federal contracts. Put bluntly, contracting officers have been stretched thinly and no longer have the time needed to open procurements to small businesses.
Many contend that it is simpler and faster to add funding to an existing federal contract or to bundle many disparate governmental needs into huge omnibus contracts that often top $1 billion in size. This may be a bad policy and a poor return for taxpayer dollars, but it is the most expedient process for a federal procurement officer that is required by Congress to get the billions of dollars of new federal money committed quickly.
The Obama Administration has further rigged the deck, for construction contracts, by forcing small businesses to seek Union participation prior to bidding on federal construction and infrastructure jobs. This move, might be great for the Unions, but it destroys innovation and further burdens small businesses with foolhardy regulatory burdens.
The American Small Business League’s decision to bring suit against the government represents one of the few times that a trade organization has mustered the courage to tell the truth about what’s really happening in federal procurements. The fact is, the government has been doing a poor job in contracting for years, but under the Obama Administration, small businesses have been hit especially hard.
To read the rest of this article please click here: http://biggovernment.com/ldoan/2010/04/14/small-businesses-sue-government-goliath/
A small business association called the American Small Business League (ASBL) did something unexpected this week. ASBL President, Lloyd Chapman, decided to take the Obama Administration to court and expose the growing divergence between the Administration’s stated goals to meet the federal statutes for small business participation versus the Obama Administration’s total failure on federal, small business contracting.
By any measure, Obama’s record on federal, small business contracting has been abysmal. The recent, National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) Small Business Economic Trends Report confirms that “for small business owners, 2009 ended with a thud.”
Many factors have contributed to the disaster in small business contracting. A rush to push the $787 billion Stimulus funding quickly gave federal contracting officers no real options other than to dump the additional federal money onto existing federal contracts that are held by the largest companies. There just was not enough time to conduct procurements to encourage the participation of small businesses. So, small businesses received very little of any of the new federal business or the loans anticipated from the $787 billion Stimulus spending, even though President Obama and Democrats in Congress stated that awards to small businesses were the primary goal.
Worse yet, Obama decided to delay the long-overdue need to increase the number of federal contracting officers that are in critical short supply. Ten years ago, each federal contracting officer was responsible for an average of $300 thousand dollars of federal contracts. Today, each federal contracting officer is responsible for $50 million dollars in federal contracts. Put bluntly, contracting officers have been stretched thinly and no longer have the time needed to open procurements to small businesses.
Many contend that it is simpler and faster to add funding to an existing federal contract or to bundle many disparate governmental needs into huge omnibus contracts that often top $1 billion in size. This may be a bad policy and a poor return for taxpayer dollars, but it is the most expedient process for a federal procurement officer that is required by Congress to get the billions of dollars of new federal money committed quickly.
The Obama Administration has further rigged the deck, for construction contracts, by forcing small businesses to seek Union participation prior to bidding on federal construction and infrastructure jobs. This move, might be great for the Unions, but it destroys innovation and further burdens small businesses with foolhardy regulatory burdens.
The American Small Business League’s decision to bring suit against the government represents one of the few times that a trade organization has mustered the courage to tell the truth about what’s really happening in federal procurements. The fact is, the government has been doing a poor job in contracting for years, but under the Obama Administration, small businesses have been hit especially hard.
To read the rest of this article please click here: http://biggovernment.com/ldoan/2010/04/14/small-businesses-sue-government-goliath/
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
ASBL's Lloyd Chapman to Appear on CNBC April 13
Tomorrow morning the President of the American Small Business League, Lloyd Chapman, will be live on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street with Erin Burnett and Mark Haines at approximately 10:30 am EST / 7:30 PST. He will be on with Columbia University Business School Professor Clifford Schorer discussing the biggest issues facing small business and how to fix it.
Additionally, this morning the Washington Post ran a story titled, "Big businesses winning contracts meant for small ones, groups charge" by Dion Haynes. In the story, Haynes discusses the diversion of small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms, the American Small Business League’s lawsuit against the GSA, and the SBA’s response to allegations of fraud and abuse in its procurement programs. Please click here to access the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103341.html
Additionally, this morning the Washington Post ran a story titled, "Big businesses winning contracts meant for small ones, groups charge" by Dion Haynes. In the story, Haynes discusses the diversion of small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms, the American Small Business League’s lawsuit against the GSA, and the SBA’s response to allegations of fraud and abuse in its procurement programs. Please click here to access the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103341.html
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