Obama Administration Stalls the Release of Small Business Contracting Data, According to the American Small Business League

The American Small Business League released the following press release today:

It has now been 10 months since the end of the federal government's fiscal year (FY) 2008, yet the Obama Administration has still not released the federal government's annual small business contracting statistics for that year.

Since the federal government's contracting database is essentially a real time database, the information could have been released shortly after the end of FY 2008, which ended on September 30th.

During the Bush Administration, hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts were diverted to Fortune 1000 firms and their subsidiaries. The Small Business Administration (SBA) included those contracts to large businesses towards the Bush Administration's small business contracting data, which greatly inflated those numbers.

It is not known if the Obama Administration will continue to artificially inflate federal small business contracting data by including awards to Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses in its statistics. Critics of the SBA believe the agency stalls the release of the small business data to give it time to modify the information to hide the fact that contracts to large businesses are included in the government's small business data.

Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations found billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have wound-up in the hands of corporate giants. In Report 5-15, the SBA Office of Inspector General stated, "One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today is that large businesses are receiving small business procurement awards and agencies are receiving credit for these awards."

In February of 2008, President Obama recognized the magnitude of the problem when he released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." To date he has failed to adopt any policy or legislation to honor that campaign promise.

When the Obama Administration finally does release its small business contracting numbers there will almost certainly be a controversy over the accuracy of the data. The release of the government's annual small business contracting statistics is guaranteed to reignite demand for the federal government to end the practice of awarding small business contracts to corporate giants.

A new bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives titled the, "Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act," or H.R. 2568, which will address the problem. To date, the Obama Administration has not issued a statement of administration policy endorsing the bill.

Please visit YouTube at to see ASBL President Lloyd Chapman talk about this blog post.

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Comments

[einstein10]

This is TOTALLY outrageous!

Thank you for this article!

[Read2know]

If they have a real time database of information they should not have to stall on releasing the facts, unless they feel they have something to hide.

[Rule Of Law]

In February of 2008, President Obama recognized the magnitude of the problem when he released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." To date he has failed to adopt any policy or legislation to honor that campaign promise.

Not surprised. He's owned by Wall Street.

[iluvwine]

I am sure they are just REALLY busy, for the 8th or 9th consecutive year in a row during the exact same time of year. The SBA just needs to make a few "minor" changes first, like taking a few zeros off here and there and moving the coma over and adding a decimal. Take your time, no rush. It's not like small businesses are important for the economy anyway. Who needs'em?

[Radar423]

This is the same thing that happens when bad movies get released.
They don't let the critics see it first, hoping they can fool someone into paying ten bucks to see a lousy movie.
OK small business, are you ready for "Nightmare on Pennsylvannia Ave. Part 8?"

We are hosed again!!!

Of course they will blame it on human error, and miscoding. Have they ever miscoded a small business as a large, or does that tunnel only work in one direction?

[GrimJack]

my only question is: for last years data, how much in "errors" are they going to have to scrub because it went to large companies? When the data was released last year, the SBA had to remove over $6 billion worth of small business contracts because it went to giant corporations, think about how many small businesses could be helped with $6 billion right now