The following blog was posted on the Huffington Post by Lloyd Chapman
During the 2008 presidential election, then-Senator Barack Obama called for a windfall profits tax on the oil industry to subsidize a $1,000 "emergency" rebate for consumers struggling with surging gas prices and made provocative statements regarding the cost of energy and its respective negative impact on American families.
On May 6, 2008, Obama stated, "It isn't right that oil companies are making record profits at a time when ordinary Americans are going into debt trying to pay rising energy costs. That's why we'll put a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use it to help... families pay their heating and cooling bills and reduce energy costs."
However, www.change.gov, which housed the Obama-Biden transition agenda, was cleansed of any mention of such a tax shortly after.
The promise was displayed prominently at the top of the "economy" section of Obama's campaign website. That same information was transferred to Obama's transition website, when it was launched on Thursday, November 6, 2008. However, the language regarding the windfall profits tax vanished on Saturday, November 8, 2008 in an unceremonious and abrupt manner.
What stunned me was that when I noticed this, I couldn't find any mention of it in the news, anywhere in the world. So, I wrote a press release that was quickly picked up by different media outlets, including a story in The Huffington Post that saw 3,500 comments. Much to my amazement, the story spread across the nation and even to newspapers in Europe, and that's how the world found out that Barack Obama had dropped his promise to institute a windfall profts tax on the oil and gas industry.
The American Small Business League was foremost in questioning why, with the election over, President-elect Obama was failing to justify the removal of the windfall profits tax from his tax plan and whether the sudden elimination of this issue was a further indication that large corporations were already demonstrating their ability to influence the Obama administration.
An unnamed aide from the Obama administration eventually responded in December 2008, that the promise was dropped due to falling gas prices.
Since then, gas prices have skyrocketed, and profits for the oil and gas industry are some of the highest of any corporations in history.
ExxonMobil, for example, received so much in federal subsidies during the Obama administration, that Citizens for Tax Justice released a 2011 report, finding that "Over the past two years, ExxonMobil reported $9,910 million in pretax U.S. profits. But it enjoyed so many tax subsidies that its federal income tax bill was only $39 million -- a tax rate of only 0.4 percent."
In fact, in 2009, Exxon Mobil paid no taxes at all to the U.S. federal government on domestic profits of nearly $2.6 billion by legally funneling its profits through wholly-owned subsidiaries in countries like the Cayman Islands and reinvesting earnings overseas. In 2011, Exxon Mobil made $41.1 billion in profits, equal to about $5 million an hour, and spent over $13 million on lobbying efforts. Exxon's current effective tax rate is 17.6 percent, lower than that for most Americans.
Since the U.S. government has decided to treat corporations as individuals, then corporations should be required to pay at least the same amount in taxes as the average American individual does.
If President Obama were the man we all thought he would be and keep his promises to bring down gas prices and look for new sources of revenue -- the companies making record profits without a windfall tax seems to me like a perfect place to start looking for new revenue.
The oil and gas industry has a stranglehold on Barack Obama and every member of Congress. This country could go into a depression we'd never recover from, oil and gas could continue to make record profits and gas prices could hit $10 bucks a gallon -- but you'd still never see legislation to curb the excessive profits from the oil and gas industry because of the money that the oil and gas industry throws around.
Watch any major news outlet for an hour and you'll see back-to-back ads from the American Petroleum Institute or similar oil and gas lobbyist. To watch their ads, you'd think they're the Red Cross. They act like they're all doing us a big favor, like a philanthropic organization. But when you see those ads, I want you to realize that the oil and gas industry is making the biggest record profits in history, gouging us at the pump, paying little to nothing in income tax -- and President Obama thinks that's great.
My advice to everyone: quit listening to what President Obama is saying and start watching what he is doing.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Friday, October 21, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
SBA Refuses to Comment on Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Claims Small Business Data Is As "Clean As It Can Be"
The Small Business Administration (SBA) has waged a decade long campaign to diminish and cast public doubt on the charge that the agency has overseen the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to large corporations. On June 24, 2011, the SBA released the government’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 Small Business Procurement Scorecard, reporting almost $98 billion in federal contracts, or 22.7 percent of contract dollars, went to small businesses.
(http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/FY10%20SB%20Procurement%20Scorecard_FINAL_GOVERNMENT%20WIDE.pdf)
However, the American Small Business League’s (ASBL) annual analysis of the SBA’s federal small business contracting data again shows that a majority of small business contracts were awarded to large corporations. Of the top 100 recipients of small business contracts in FY 2010, 61 were large firms. These large firms received 62.5 percent of the total dollar amount awarded to those firms, a staggering $8.8 billion dollars. Corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Xerox, 3M Company and AT&T are just some of the mega-corporations that received small business contracts during FY 2010.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
Following the release of the ASBL’s FY 2010 data, Michele Chang, the SBA’s senior advisor for government contracting and business development, chose to maintain the course set by a series of SBA spokespeople. According to Ms. Chang, all of the federal agencies charged with small business contracting goals have gone through processes to ensure that data is “clean” and free of data anomalies such as “miscoding.” Chang went on to claim that the SBA is, “confident this is the cleanest data we’ve had and the cleanest it can be.”
(http://blog.nacm.org/blog/shappell/sba-responds-to-allegations-that-small-business-scorecard-misleading)
Perhaps the most prevalent of the various, unclear explanations for the diversion of billions in small business contracts to corporate giants, so-called “miscoding” is aimed at painting accusations of fraud and abuse as frivolous. Essentially, the SBA claims the diversion of small business contracts is due to computer glitches or simple human error. Former SBA Administrator Hector V. Barreto, his successors Steve Preston and Karen Mills, and SBA Spokesman Mike Stamler have all used this murky term to explain how, year-after-year, large corporations receive small business contracts that are in turn counted toward the congressionally mandated 23 percent small business contracting goal.
It takes only the simplest logic to see that the “miscoding” excuse does not hold up. Random errors in a field with just two possible answers would follow the same pattern of flipping a coin. However, we do not see any “miscoding” errors that categorize small businesses as large. Unless you believe the SBA can flip a coin thousands of times a day, year-after-year and make it come up heads every time, there must be another answer.
Ironically, the SBA’s own Office of Inspector General has disagreed with the well-worn “miscoding” assessment as an explanation for the continued diversion of small business contracts to large corporations.
In Report 5-15, the SBA IG referred to the problem as, “One of the most important challenges facing the SBA and the entire federal government today.” For six consecutive years, the SBA IG has named the issue as the number one challenge facing the SBA. In Report 5-16, the SBA IG attributed the awarding of small business contracts to large firms to “false” and “improper” certifications.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf; http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-16.pdf)
Ms. Chang’s attempt to paint her agency’s grossly distorted data as, “the cleanest it can be” mirrors the explanations put forth by the SBA in regards to FY 2009 data. Joe Jordan, the SBA’s associate administrator for government contracting and business development, said, “I can tell you this data is as clean as its ever been…but it’s not 100 percent free of errors.”(http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1493)
And so the issue reaches a tipping point. Ms. Chang further denied the ASBL’s allegation that only five percent, as opposed to the 22.7 trumpeted by the SBA, of recipients of small business contracts were actually small businesses. However, when asked if Lockheed Martin, AT&T and Hewlett-Packard received small business contracts, Chang said she “can’t comment on them specifically.”
I would ask the public, the small business community, and any citizen concerned with job creation to take a moment and consider this contradiction. The SBA’s spokesperson feels comfortable claiming in the media that the ASBL’s allegations are untrue, while simultaneously expressing her own inability to comment on the most damning evidence in the SBA’s own data: the names of mega-corporations continue to surface in small business contracting data, as they have for over a decade.
The ASBL maintains that the Obama Administration has dramatically inflated the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by under-reporting the actual federal acquisition budget, and by including billions of dollars in contracts awarded to large businesses.
If over-reporting the dollar amount awarded to small businesses in federal contracts by as much as seventeen percent is the cleanest the data can be, everyone working at the SBA is completely incompetent. Furthermore, if the SBA’s officials cannot provide substantive oversight of federal contracting programs the Obama Administration must appoint an SBA Administrator who can. Otherwise, the President is sending an unmistakable message to our nation’s top job creators: as small businesses your interests do not align with those of this Administration.
(http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/FY10%20SB%20Procurement%20Scorecard_FINAL_GOVERNMENT%20WIDE.pdf)
However, the American Small Business League’s (ASBL) annual analysis of the SBA’s federal small business contracting data again shows that a majority of small business contracts were awarded to large corporations. Of the top 100 recipients of small business contracts in FY 2010, 61 were large firms. These large firms received 62.5 percent of the total dollar amount awarded to those firms, a staggering $8.8 billion dollars. Corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Xerox, 3M Company and AT&T are just some of the mega-corporations that received small business contracts during FY 2010.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
Following the release of the ASBL’s FY 2010 data, Michele Chang, the SBA’s senior advisor for government contracting and business development, chose to maintain the course set by a series of SBA spokespeople. According to Ms. Chang, all of the federal agencies charged with small business contracting goals have gone through processes to ensure that data is “clean” and free of data anomalies such as “miscoding.” Chang went on to claim that the SBA is, “confident this is the cleanest data we’ve had and the cleanest it can be.”
(http://blog.nacm.org/blog/shappell/sba-responds-to-allegations-that-small-business-scorecard-misleading)
Perhaps the most prevalent of the various, unclear explanations for the diversion of billions in small business contracts to corporate giants, so-called “miscoding” is aimed at painting accusations of fraud and abuse as frivolous. Essentially, the SBA claims the diversion of small business contracts is due to computer glitches or simple human error. Former SBA Administrator Hector V. Barreto, his successors Steve Preston and Karen Mills, and SBA Spokesman Mike Stamler have all used this murky term to explain how, year-after-year, large corporations receive small business contracts that are in turn counted toward the congressionally mandated 23 percent small business contracting goal.
It takes only the simplest logic to see that the “miscoding” excuse does not hold up. Random errors in a field with just two possible answers would follow the same pattern of flipping a coin. However, we do not see any “miscoding” errors that categorize small businesses as large. Unless you believe the SBA can flip a coin thousands of times a day, year-after-year and make it come up heads every time, there must be another answer.
Ironically, the SBA’s own Office of Inspector General has disagreed with the well-worn “miscoding” assessment as an explanation for the continued diversion of small business contracts to large corporations.
In Report 5-15, the SBA IG referred to the problem as, “One of the most important challenges facing the SBA and the entire federal government today.” For six consecutive years, the SBA IG has named the issue as the number one challenge facing the SBA. In Report 5-16, the SBA IG attributed the awarding of small business contracts to large firms to “false” and “improper” certifications.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf; http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-16.pdf)
Ms. Chang’s attempt to paint her agency’s grossly distorted data as, “the cleanest it can be” mirrors the explanations put forth by the SBA in regards to FY 2009 data. Joe Jordan, the SBA’s associate administrator for government contracting and business development, said, “I can tell you this data is as clean as its ever been…but it’s not 100 percent free of errors.”(http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1493)
And so the issue reaches a tipping point. Ms. Chang further denied the ASBL’s allegation that only five percent, as opposed to the 22.7 trumpeted by the SBA, of recipients of small business contracts were actually small businesses. However, when asked if Lockheed Martin, AT&T and Hewlett-Packard received small business contracts, Chang said she “can’t comment on them specifically.”
I would ask the public, the small business community, and any citizen concerned with job creation to take a moment and consider this contradiction. The SBA’s spokesperson feels comfortable claiming in the media that the ASBL’s allegations are untrue, while simultaneously expressing her own inability to comment on the most damning evidence in the SBA’s own data: the names of mega-corporations continue to surface in small business contracting data, as they have for over a decade.
The ASBL maintains that the Obama Administration has dramatically inflated the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by under-reporting the actual federal acquisition budget, and by including billions of dollars in contracts awarded to large businesses.
If over-reporting the dollar amount awarded to small businesses in federal contracts by as much as seventeen percent is the cleanest the data can be, everyone working at the SBA is completely incompetent. Furthermore, if the SBA’s officials cannot provide substantive oversight of federal contracting programs the Obama Administration must appoint an SBA Administrator who can. Otherwise, the President is sending an unmistakable message to our nation’s top job creators: as small businesses your interests do not align with those of this Administration.
SBA Spokesman Continues to Mislead the Media
Petaluma, Calif. – The following is a statement by the American Small Business League:
For the past decade, Small Business Administration (SBA) spokesman Mike Stamler has led a coordinated campaign to mislead the public and media about the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.
On June 24, the SBA released its fiscal year (FY) 2010 small business scorecard and goaling report, claiming that small businesses received just under $98 billion in federal contracts, or 22.7 percent of total spending. An analysis of the FY 2010 contracting data by the American Small Business League (ASBL) found that 61 of the top 100 small business contract recipients were actually large companies that received more than $8.8 billion in contracts counted towards the congressionally mandated 23 percent goal. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
In response to the analysis by the ASBL, Mr. Stamler defended the SBA’s numbers claiming that, “Every federal agency certified that the data is correct.” (http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1857)
For years, the SBA and Mr. Stamler have used the excuse of “miscoding” to explain why some of the largest firms in the U.S. and Europe receive billions of dollars a month in contracts intended for small businesses. Last year, Mr. Stamler claimed that large companies receive small business contracts, “because of simple human error,” and “miscoding.” In a May 2007 press release, the SBA even claimed the rampant abuses were simply a “myth.”
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/sbamythvfact.pdf)
In 2008, after quoting ASBL President Lloyd Chapman in a story, the Long Island Business Journal (LIBJ) received a series of aggressive correspondence from Stamler, which was so profane in nature that editors of the paper responded by publishing a blog entitled, “Expletives the SBA's Forte.”
(http://libizblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/expletives-the-sbas-forte/)
Mr. Stamler’s remarks stand in stark contrast to a series of federal investigations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the SBA Office of Advocacy, and the SBA’s Inspector General (SBA IG) that have found widespread fraud and abuse in virtually every program managed by the SBA. (http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)
In Report 5-15, the SBA IG referred to the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as, “One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today.” For the last six consecutive years, the SBA IG has reported these rampant abuses as the top management challenge facing the SBA. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf)
An SBA IG investigation from March 2010 found that the SBA itself awarded federal small business contracts to large businesses during fiscal years 2008 and 2009. (http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/oig_report_10-08.pdf)
“There is no way Stamler and the SBA can explain over a trillion dollars in small business contracts going to large firms over the past decade as an accident or simply a miscoding error,” Lloyd Chapman said. “That is statistically impossible.”
For the past decade, Small Business Administration (SBA) spokesman Mike Stamler has led a coordinated campaign to mislead the public and media about the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.
On June 24, the SBA released its fiscal year (FY) 2010 small business scorecard and goaling report, claiming that small businesses received just under $98 billion in federal contracts, or 22.7 percent of total spending. An analysis of the FY 2010 contracting data by the American Small Business League (ASBL) found that 61 of the top 100 small business contract recipients were actually large companies that received more than $8.8 billion in contracts counted towards the congressionally mandated 23 percent goal. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
In response to the analysis by the ASBL, Mr. Stamler defended the SBA’s numbers claiming that, “Every federal agency certified that the data is correct.” (http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1857)
For years, the SBA and Mr. Stamler have used the excuse of “miscoding” to explain why some of the largest firms in the U.S. and Europe receive billions of dollars a month in contracts intended for small businesses. Last year, Mr. Stamler claimed that large companies receive small business contracts, “because of simple human error,” and “miscoding.” In a May 2007 press release, the SBA even claimed the rampant abuses were simply a “myth.”
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/sbamythvfact.pdf)
In 2008, after quoting ASBL President Lloyd Chapman in a story, the Long Island Business Journal (LIBJ) received a series of aggressive correspondence from Stamler, which was so profane in nature that editors of the paper responded by publishing a blog entitled, “Expletives the SBA's Forte.”
(http://libizblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/expletives-the-sbas-forte/)
Mr. Stamler’s remarks stand in stark contrast to a series of federal investigations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the SBA Office of Advocacy, and the SBA’s Inspector General (SBA IG) that have found widespread fraud and abuse in virtually every program managed by the SBA. (http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)
In Report 5-15, the SBA IG referred to the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as, “One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today.” For the last six consecutive years, the SBA IG has reported these rampant abuses as the top management challenge facing the SBA. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf)
An SBA IG investigation from March 2010 found that the SBA itself awarded federal small business contracts to large businesses during fiscal years 2008 and 2009. (http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/oig_report_10-08.pdf)
“There is no way Stamler and the SBA can explain over a trillion dollars in small business contracts going to large firms over the past decade as an accident or simply a miscoding error,” Lloyd Chapman said. “That is statistically impossible.”
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
New Bill Could Rescue National Economy
June 29, 2011
Petaluma, Calif. – A new bill aimed at closing loopholes and ending fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs could rescue the national economy. The Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act focuses on ending the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses, a problem preventing the creation of upwards of 1.8 million new jobs. Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA-04) is expected to introduce the bill later this year.
The bill targets ambiguous provisions within the Small Business Act of 1953 that have allowed publicly traded and foreign-owned firms to qualify as small businesses for the purpose of receiving federal small business contracts. This will help the federal government award contracts to legitimate small businesses and reach its congressionally mandated goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime contract dollars to small businesses.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses create more than 90 percent of all net new jobs. Moreover, a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation found that since 1980 businesses less than five years old have created nearly all new jobs. However, based on government data, the American Small Business League (ASBL) estimates that every year up to $200 billion in federal small business contracts is diverted from the nation’s chief job creators—its 27 million small businesses—to some of the largest corporations in the U.S. and Europe. The new law would end this abuse.
(http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/where-will-the-jobs-come-from.aspx)
Since 2003, a series of federal investigations have uncovered billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in small business contracting programs. 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.” For six consecutive years, the SBA IG has named the issue as the number one challenge facing the SBA.
(http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html#5-15)
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 large companies like Lockheed Martin, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, 3M and AT&T received federal small business contracts.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
“The Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act is the most efficient, effective solution to job creation that has ever been proposed,” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. “It requires no new spending, no new taxes, and it is deficit neutral. Just take existing federal infrastructure spending, and direct it to the nation’s chief job creators; its small businesses.”
-###-
Contact:
Brian Reeder
Public Affairs Analyst
American Small Business League
brianreeder(at)asbl.com
(707) 789-9575
Petaluma, Calif. – A new bill aimed at closing loopholes and ending fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs could rescue the national economy. The Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act focuses on ending the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses, a problem preventing the creation of upwards of 1.8 million new jobs. Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA-04) is expected to introduce the bill later this year.
The bill targets ambiguous provisions within the Small Business Act of 1953 that have allowed publicly traded and foreign-owned firms to qualify as small businesses for the purpose of receiving federal small business contracts. This will help the federal government award contracts to legitimate small businesses and reach its congressionally mandated goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime contract dollars to small businesses.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses create more than 90 percent of all net new jobs. Moreover, a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation found that since 1980 businesses less than five years old have created nearly all new jobs. However, based on government data, the American Small Business League (ASBL) estimates that every year up to $200 billion in federal small business contracts is diverted from the nation’s chief job creators—its 27 million small businesses—to some of the largest corporations in the U.S. and Europe. The new law would end this abuse.
(http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/where-will-the-jobs-come-from.aspx)
Since 2003, a series of federal investigations have uncovered billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in small business contracting programs. 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.” For six consecutive years, the SBA IG has named the issue as the number one challenge facing the SBA.
(http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html#5-15)
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 large companies like Lockheed Martin, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, 3M and AT&T received federal small business contracts.
(http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
“The Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act is the most efficient, effective solution to job creation that has ever been proposed,” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. “It requires no new spending, no new taxes, and it is deficit neutral. Just take existing federal infrastructure spending, and direct it to the nation’s chief job creators; its small businesses.”
-###-
Contact:
Brian Reeder
Public Affairs Analyst
American Small Business League
brianreeder(at)asbl.com
(707) 789-9575
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Obama Administration Still Diverting Small Business Dollars to Corporate Giants
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2011
Petaluma, Calif. –61 of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts for fiscal year (FY) 2010 were large firms, according to a new report from the American Small Business League (ASBL). These large firms received 62.5 percent of the dollars awarded to the top 100, or $8.8 billion. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
The ASBL’s findings come in the wake of Small Business Administration (SBA) claims that the federal government narrowly missed its congressionally mandated 23 percent small business goal. On Friday, June 24, the SBA announced the government awarded $98 billion, or 22.7 percent of federal spending, to small businesses. (http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-procurement-goaling-scorecards)
“The SBA claims the government nearly hit its small business goal, and yet the government’s own data indicates it awarded no more than 5 percent of federal work to small businesses,” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. “The SBA’s most recent claims are just more misleading smoke and mirrors.”
The ASBL maintains the Obama Administration has dramatically inflated the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by under-reporting the actual federal acquisition budget, and by including billions of dollars in contracts awarded to large businesses. The ASBL maintains, the actual federal acquisition budget for foreign, domestic, classified and unclassified projects is roughly $1 trillion. The Obama Administration’s goaling achievement is based on a number that is less than half of the actual federal acquisition budget.
According to the Obama Administration’s most recent small business data, recipients of small business contracts during FY 2010 included Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L-3 Communications, Hewlett-Packard, and AT&T, among many others.
Since 2003, a series of federal investigations have uncovered the diversion of billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts to corporate giants. This diversion has lead to a significant shortfall in the volume of federal contracts actually going to legitimate small businesses. 2010 federal data indicates that once again the government missed its small business goal by a minimum of 18 percent. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf)
In April 2010, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), the Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship estimated that, “Increasing contracts to small businesses by just 1 percent,” would create more than 100,000 new jobs. Based on the latest data, the ASBL estimates that ending this abuse would create upwards of 1.8 million jobs. http://sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=bc065833-dafc-46c5-9e6f-21209a532de2
“It is time for the Obama Administration to stop misleading the public, and start actually working to end billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in small business contracting programs,” Chapman said. “Ending this abuse would be a more effective economic stimulus than anything proposed by the Obama Administration to date.”
-###-
Contact:
Christopher Gunn
Communications Director
American Small Business League
cgunn (at) asbl.com
(707) 789-9575
June 28, 2011
Petaluma, Calif. –61 of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts for fiscal year (FY) 2010 were large firms, according to a new report from the American Small Business League (ASBL). These large firms received 62.5 percent of the dollars awarded to the top 100, or $8.8 billion. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/asbl_2010_dataanalysis.pdf)
The ASBL’s findings come in the wake of Small Business Administration (SBA) claims that the federal government narrowly missed its congressionally mandated 23 percent small business goal. On Friday, June 24, the SBA announced the government awarded $98 billion, or 22.7 percent of federal spending, to small businesses. (http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-procurement-goaling-scorecards)
“The SBA claims the government nearly hit its small business goal, and yet the government’s own data indicates it awarded no more than 5 percent of federal work to small businesses,” ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. “The SBA’s most recent claims are just more misleading smoke and mirrors.”
The ASBL maintains the Obama Administration has dramatically inflated the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by under-reporting the actual federal acquisition budget, and by including billions of dollars in contracts awarded to large businesses. The ASBL maintains, the actual federal acquisition budget for foreign, domestic, classified and unclassified projects is roughly $1 trillion. The Obama Administration’s goaling achievement is based on a number that is less than half of the actual federal acquisition budget.
According to the Obama Administration’s most recent small business data, recipients of small business contracts during FY 2010 included Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L-3 Communications, Hewlett-Packard, and AT&T, among many others.
Since 2003, a series of federal investigations have uncovered the diversion of billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts to corporate giants. This diversion has lead to a significant shortfall in the volume of federal contracts actually going to legitimate small businesses. 2010 federal data indicates that once again the government missed its small business goal by a minimum of 18 percent. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf)
In April 2010, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), the Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship estimated that, “Increasing contracts to small businesses by just 1 percent,” would create more than 100,000 new jobs. Based on the latest data, the ASBL estimates that ending this abuse would create upwards of 1.8 million jobs. http://sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=bc065833-dafc-46c5-9e6f-21209a532de2
“It is time for the Obama Administration to stop misleading the public, and start actually working to end billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in small business contracting programs,” Chapman said. “Ending this abuse would be a more effective economic stimulus than anything proposed by the Obama Administration to date.”
-###-
Contact:
Christopher Gunn
Communications Director
American Small Business League
cgunn (at) asbl.com
(707) 789-9575
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