Obama Administration Policies Could Be Big Problem for Small Businesses
The policies of the Obama Administration are starting to worry me and a lot of small business owners. During the presidential campaign, President Obama's rhetoric and speeches were music to the ears of small businesses and firms owned by women and minorities. Millions of small businesses backed Obama's run for the White House.
In February of 2008, President Obama released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."
Fast forward to last Friday, August 21, 2009. The Obama Administration released the federal government's latest statistics on the volume of contracts awarded to small businesses. Small business owners were stunned, angered and disappointed to see that President Obama had gone back on his campaign promise. Of the ten largest recipients of federal small business contracts, eight of the firms were clearly large businesses and received 85 percent of the total contract dollars. Of the top 100 recipients, 64 percent of the contract dollars went to large businesses.
Textron was the single largest recipient of federal small business contracts. Textron is a Fortune 500 firm with 43,000 employees and over $14 billion in annual revenue. Textron brought in $775,773,505 in contracts through their AAI division.
Other firms considered small businesses by the Obama Administration included, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce, General Electric, Xerox, Office Depot, Staples, Dell Computer, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, 3M Corporation, General Dynamics, Booz Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, GTSI, Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
During the campaign, President Obama promised to restore the Small Business Administration's (SBA) budget, restore the SBA Administrator to a cabinet-level position and implement the 5 percent woman-owned small business contracting goal. Not one of these campaign promises has been honored.
President Obama has apparently kept his campaign promises to the super rich members of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) that contributed millions of dollars to his campaign, and the campaigns of other top leaders within the Democratic Party. Wealthy venture capitalist, Karen Mills, has been appointed to head the SBA. During her confirmation hearing, Mills voiced support for changes in the federal definition of a small business as being "independently owned" to include, you guessed it, firms controlled by some of the nation's wealthiest investors. Legitimate small businesses are concerned that during the Obama Administration, they will not only have to compete with Fortune 500 firms for federal small business contracts, but also well heeled investors with the president's ear and the head of the SBA on their team.
I predict President Obama will back legislation and/or policy by the end of 2009 that will allow his wealthy venture capitalist buddies to participate in federal small business contracting programs. The NVCA has already blanketed both House and Senate small business committees with generous contributions. It is my understanding that those contributions paid for two bills that will allow venture capitalists to cash in on federal small business contracting programs.
I would not be surprised if President Obama plans to virtually sell the SBA and it's programs to his personal friends and supporters in the venture capital industry.
My biggest fear is that after President Obama has his way with the SBA he will attempt to combine that agency with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Merging the SBA and the Commerce Department has been the wet dream of the defense and aerospace industry for 30 years. After the two agencies are merged, the budgets for the SBA programs can be quietly reduced until the SBA and its programs for legitimate small businesses no longer exist.
The final piece of evidence indicating that the Obama Administration could spell big trouble for small businesses is its allocation of stimulus funds. U.S. Census Data reports 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees. These 27 million firms employ over 50.2 percent of the private sector work force, create over 97 percent of all net new jobs and are responsible for over 50 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
To date, President Obama has allocated approximately 1 percent of the economic stimulus funds to those small businesses. Does that make sense to you? No? Doesn't seem to jive with the "small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy" routine does it?
Federal law requires a minimum of 23 percent of the total value of all federal contracts to be awarded to small businesses that are "independently owned." Based on the current federal acquisition budget of approximately $700 billion, that would be $161 billion.
Corporate giants and super wealthy venture capitalists want that money. I think Obama is going to try and give it to them. Notice I said try.
Please click here to watch ASBL President Lloyd Chapman's YouTube clip regarding this article.
Follow Lloyd Chapman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LloydChapman
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WHAT is he thinking???
Obama backs mandates. $375-$625 month just for an individual. PLUS Tax penalties if you don't comply.
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
Single-payer should be only $150-$200 month like in other countries!
Obama policies destoying small businesses!
Obama backs mandates. $375-$625 month just for an individual. PLUS Tax penalties if you don't comply.
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
Single-payer should be only $150-$200 month like in other countries!
We are fortunate to have someone like Mr. Chapman keeping this issue alive. The mainstream press doesn't seem to have a clue what is going on with the economy, being spoon fed information to try to make us feel good. It is small businesses that need the money to help get us out of this mess.
The fact that small business contracts are not only going to fortune 500 companies, but also to INTERNATIONAL companies is completely ludicrous. listen government, if you wanna steal from your own businesses, that's wrong on many levels. But to steal from the whole country on top of it all? That is absolute hypocrisy and more then unethical, its preposterous.
I call shenanigans.
Our family biz of 3 years which has made a profit every year cannot obtain a loan either. We only have 15K in equipment debt. The equipment is a tractor/ a work truck conservatively valued at 65K for both. We only owe 7 more payments, and have never been late. WHY O WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
Once again big business & VC companies bring home the bacon while the rest of us go belly up. Obama was supposed to be for middle class America. For US!! He was supposed to offer us hope, not discouragement & blatant lies to his brothers & sisters. Obama led me to believe we were all in this together & each of us was responsible for our own actions - that each of us needed to do something to help pull this country up by it's bootstraps. Yet we do that, and all we feel is the boot kicking us down. Obama WON'T LET US bring this country back. He has us where he wants us: thinking we're making a contribution & difference, and all the while Corporate America has us pinned to the mat. First they rob us out of our homes with bad loans & lies, now they want our businesses too. I've had it. Enough. If we don't say "THIS IS WRONG!", who will? President Obama: I voted for you to lead my country, gave you my faith & HOPE, and you can't even stand behind my business? You're taking my livelihood and donating it to companies lining the pockets of Washington, to make a few people much richer & regular folks much broker. That's your agenda, but I will not be broken. I'm a good American and believe in the other good Americans fighting to keep their small businesses alive. You need to believe in us too.
How true! Enough is enough.
This needs to be front page news! It is amazing what people with money can get away with. Do they not realize that they may be making money, but the rest of the country and the economy are failing because of it?? Good work Lloyd...keep it coming!
Right! This should be FRONT PAGE! C'mon Arianna!!!
"U.S. Census Data reports 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees. These 27 million firms employ over 50.2 percent of the private sector work force, create over 97 percent of all net new jobs and are responsible for over 50 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)."
Lloyd- keep the faith brother and do not give up the fight.
That quote, "Greed is Good" didn't really work out to well for Gordon Gecko. I hope Obama has seen the end of that movie.
yup . we lost a contract to a small big biz. its bs and more of the same
Another great article that should be on the HuffPost Homepage!
If you run a small business or are an independent contractor, you should be very worried.
People should look into those who are Obama's Czars and do a documentary.
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