Obama Stimulus Plan Fails Middle Class

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the national unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent in the month of October, its highest point in 26 years.

Small business advocates like the American Small Business League (ASBL) believe the unemployment rate continues to soar because the Obama Administration's economic stimulus plan has virtually ignored middle class firms.

Firms with 20 or fewer employees are responsible for over 97 percent of all net new jobs, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data. http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200708/data.html To date the Obama Administration has awarded less than one percent of all funds allocated under the stimulus to those firms.

In February of 2008, President Obama released the statement, "It is time 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 statement is based on a series of federal investigations, which have found that every year billions of dollars in federal small business contracts are diverted to some of the largest companies around the world. http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html

The ASBL estimates that since President Obama took office over $100 billion in federal contracts were diverted to corporate giants around the world.

Despite pledging to address these issues, the Obama Administration has consistently refused to adopt any legislation or policy to solve the problem. Consequently, Fortune 500 firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls Royce, and French giant Thales Communications continue to receive federal small business contracts. The most recent data released by the Obama Administration lists Fortune 500 corporation, Textron Inc. as the largest recipient of federal small business contracts. Textron has 43,000 employees.

If President Obama really wants to stimulate our nation's economy and create new jobs, he needs to help pass H.R. 2568, the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act. H.R. 2568 offers the most efficient and cost effective method anyone has proposed to redirect federal infrastructure spending to small businesses. It would also solve the 10-year-old contracting scandal the Small Business Administration (SBA) Inspector General referred to as, 'one of the most important challenges facing the small business administration and the entire federal government today.'

 

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Comments

[GrimJack]

Its funny that the Obama administration has adopted those same failed policies of Bush Jr. and Reagan, how many examples do we need to see or live through before we realize that trickle-down economics does not work in reality. Bush Sr. knew it when he called it voodoo economics and it looks good on paper, but does not work in reality. Obama needs to read up on Keynesian economic principles if he wants to create jobs and get us out of this mess without creating another pending crash. He needs to get money into the hands of those at the bottom and into the hands of small businesses

[iridium53]

Don't kid yourself, Obama's policies are, quite clearly, not intended to help the middle-class or small business.

The only beneficiaries of Obama's economic policies have been the executives of the biggest companies - banks, insurance, healthcare - individuals who control lots of money they can donate to his campaigns.

The Obama administraton economic team - Summers, Geithner, Bernanke - have implemented Reagonimic trickle-down for the benefit of the banksters.