Details of Obama Small Business Conference Remain a Mystery
Two weeks after President Barack Obama announced a special conference to discuss increasing the flow of credit to small businesses, no information about the date, time, location or attendees has been made available.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) is skeptical about the true purpose of the conference. The ASBL predicts that the actual purpose of the meeting will be to try and change the long standing federal definition of a small business as "independently owned" to include firms owned by wealthy venture capitalists that backed President Obama's campaign.
If this conference does take place, I doubt there will be one person in the room like myself who has a documentable track record of fighting for legitimate small businesses. I'm sure there will be sham small business groups that are actually backed by the Fortune 500 corporations that are currently receiving most federal small business contracts. There will also be a significant number of venture capitalists that are trying to highjack federal small business programs.
The ASBL is concerned that not only will the conference not help small businesses, but a proposal may even come out of the conference to close the SBA under the guise of bolstering the agency by combining it with the U.S. Department of Commerce. In the past, combining small agencies with the Commerce Department has been a technique used in Washington by previous administrations to quietly close agencies. The Minority Business Development Agency was essentially closed in this way.
If President Obama wants to help small businesses he needs to make good on his campaign promise to, "end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php The best way to do that is for him to pass H.R. 2568, the Fairness and Transparency in Contacting Act of 2009. This bill would redirect over $100 billion a year in current federal infrastructure spending to the middle class firms where nearly all new jobs are created. http://www.asbl.com/documents/hr2568.pdf
According to the most recent data released by the Obama Administration billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to firms like: Textron, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce and French firm Thales Communications. http://www.asbl.com/documents/20090825TopSmallBusinessContractors2008.pdf
In February of 2009, Obama officials awarded a $128 million small business contract to, Fortune 500 firm, Bechtel Bettis Inc. http://www.asbl.com/documents/20090806BechtelSB_DOE.pdf
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It sounds like they want to have a quick little meeting without true small business representatives to muck up their plans.
This is exactly what happens every time the President, not just Obama - pick any of them, starts talking about small business issues and wanting to help, hold onto your wallets. All small businesses ever get is nothing but lip service, and then are told help is coming right before something terrible happens...
When we elected President Obama there was more excitement surrounding the impending event than a 17 year old boy has on Prom night.
Obama was going to be our dream date that finally pushed us over the threshold of manhood.
There was so much joy and anticipation.
Obama was renting the room, buying the liquor, and offering to teach us how to unsnap that pesky bra.
I think if you are a small business in this country under Obama's leadership you are going to wind up exactly as I did on prom night.........Naked in a ditch, a knot on my head, mystery bruises forming all over, with a wrecked car and clutching the same 3 Trojan's that had been in my wallet for the last 3 years.
Has this man kept a single campaign promise???????
I am still waiting to go to one of those 200 meetings about small businesses that they crowed about 75 days ago that now have 15 days to "Git Ur Done"
creepy, I am not sure if I should feel sorry for you or scared by you...
Correction: The Minority Business Development Agency is, in fact, still in existence more than 40 years after President Richard Nixon established the Agency to promote the growth and global competitiveness of minority-owned firms.
Since 1969, the minority business community has grown from 300,000 minority-owned firms to more than 4 million. Last year, MBDA, through its national network of minority business centers, helped minority businesses access more than $2 billion in contracts and financing packages which created more than 5,000 new jobs. Year-to-date, MBDA has generated more than $2.5 billion in contracts and financing packages for minority business clients and created 3,000 new jobs in what has been a challenging economic year for many businesses.
We would encourage minority business owners to visit one of our centers (you can find a list at www.mbda.gov) for more information on how you can grow your minority firm.
It's nice to see that the MBDA is keeping an eye on what's going on in the small business world. Small business needs all the help it can get! Looking forward to seeing the MBDA support HR 2568 so that instead of helping minority businesses access $2 billion plus in contracts, they could help redirect over $100 billion back to small businesses. Imagine how much THAT would help minority owned small businesses! According to Obama's calculation there would be over 40,000 jobs created per billion spent. 4 million jobs is a heck of a lot more than 5,000 jobs.
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