New Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Karen Mills' first weeks in office will be easily predictable.
My guess is that Mills will most likely ignore the seven years of federal investigations that found hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts actually went to Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other large businesses.
She will ignore recommendations and investigations from the SBA's own Office of Inspector General (OIG) such as Report 5-15, which 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." (http://www.sba.gov/IG/05-15.pdf) Since 2003, there have been more than a dozen federal investigations, which have found fraud, abuse, loopholes and a lack of oversight in federal small business contracting programs.
Like her predecessors, she will fail to make even the simplest and most reasonable effort to stop large businesses from taking federal contracts meant for the small businesses that create over 97 percent of all new jobs in America.
She will probably keep all of the SBA executives that have spent the last eight years lying to Congress, the American people and the media about rampant fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs. SBA executives that should be prosecuted for creating false and misleading media campaigns regarding the proven diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations will keep their jobs. Even after a series of federal and private investigations, which found hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts actually went to many of the largest companies in the world, these individuals attempted to claim the diversion of small business contracts to large corporations was a "myth" and the result of "miscoding." (http://www.asbl.com/documents/sbamythvfact.pdf)
Administrator Mills' primary mission will likely be the diversion of even more federal small business contracts to firms controlled by her wealthy friends and colleagues in the venture capital industry. The same wealthy venture capitalists that contributed millions of dollars to President Obama's campaign.
Some might even view Mills' appointment to head the SBA as a political pay back for millions of dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama.
The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) has spent several years lobbying the most powerful Democrats in Congress. During that time period, the NVCA focused its contributions on the House and Senate Small Business Committees. When I say lobbying, I mean the kind of lobbying where the organization fed millions of dollars in contributions to members of Congress, which will likely result in legislation that will make wealthy venture capitalists even wealthier.
I predict that Mills' public speeches, statements and press releases will focus on attempting to convince the public that the most pressing issue facing small businesses in America is the NVCA's favorite code words for hijacking billions of dollars in federal small business contracts, "increasing access to capital" for small businesses.
Unfortunately, Karen Mills is unlikely to take any significant actions to address the real problems facing hardworking small businesses struggling to compete against many of the nation's top defense contractors for even the smallest government small business contracts for goods and services.
She will likely bring the SBA solutions for "problems" that are non-existent for 99 percent of small businesses. Solutions that will include phrases like "angel investors," the ever popular, "increasing access to capital," and the latest phrase for wealthy investors looking to dominate government small business contracting programs, "investing in America."