PETALUMA, Calif., Feb 13, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The following is a statement by the American Small Business League:
The Obama administration's fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget proposal includes less funding for the Small Business Administration's (SBA) budget than the agency received 30 years ago during the Reagan administration.
This news comes less than a month after President Obama announced plans to combine the Small Business Administration with the Department of Commerce, which Washington insiders recognize as a ruse to close the SBA and end all federal small business programs.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to restore the SBA's budget and staffing to pre-Bush administration levels.
Small businesses create more than 90 percent of net new jobs, half the GDP, half the private sector workforce and 90 percent of all U.S. exports.
Despite the fact that small businesses are the primary engine of job creation and economic stimulus in America, the Obama administration has adopted policies that have weakened every federal program for small businesses.
-- In February 2008, Barack Obama stated: "it is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." He has failed to keep that promise. Latest data released from the Obama administration indicates that of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts in FY 2011, 70 were large corporations. Large corporations that received federal small business contracts in FY 2011 include Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Harris Corporation, Rockwell Collins, Blue Shield and Blue Cross, British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, AT&T and Boeing.
-- On September 9, 2011, the Obama administration announced plans to eliminate the nation's oldest program to direct federal infrastructure spending to minority-owned small businesses. The program, which establishes a 5 percent minority-owned federal small business contracting goal, dates back to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act.
"Instead of winding-down federal small business programs, we need to reopen every SBA office Bush closed, rehire every SBA employee that Bush laid off, quadruple the SBA budget and expand every federal program for small businesses-- the nation's chief job creators," said ASBL president and founder Lloyd Chapman.
SOURCE: American Small Business League
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