I feel like I'm one of the only people in the country not fooled by Barack Obama's speeches. I have met and spoken with him. I worked on his campaign and endorsed him for president. I appeared on dozens of radio shows advocating for his election. Yet he hasn't done anything he said he would do for small businesses, and he's certainly not the man we hoped he would be.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, small businesses create more than 90 percent of all net new jobs. Small businesses are responsible for more than half the GDP, half the private sector workforce and more than 90 percent of U.S. exports -- based on that data, Obama's economic policies are completely illogical. But you would never know that from watching the mainstream media.
Let's take a look at the reality of his policies.
•In February 2008, he released a statement saying: "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." Yet he has failed to prevent large corporations from hijacking federal small business contracts. During FY 2010, 60 of the top 100 companies receiving small business contracts were actually large businesses, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, British Aerospace (BAE), AT&T, and Italian defense giant Finmeccanica.
•He failed to restore the SBA's budget and staffing. The SBA's budget was higher when Ronald Reagan was president than it is today.
•Under the guise of streamlining government, he is planning to close the SBA by combining it with the Department of Commerce. I can't believe he called a press conference to announce savings of $3 billion over a decade. I challenge anyone to tell me the last time a U.S. President called a national press conference to announce saving such an insignificant amount of money. That $3 billion dollars is infinitesimal compared to the nearly $6 trillion the Pentagon will spend during the same time period.
•He failed to halt the elimination of one of the nation's oldest and most successful programs to direct federal infrastructure spending to minority owned companies. His administration had until February 26, 2009 to appeal a district court decision that dismantled the Pentagon's statutory 5 percent minority-owned small business contracting goal but refused to do so. As of today, he has refused to take any action to preserve the minority-contracting program. I think this is front-page news but it has gone unreported in the mainstream media.
•In total, less than 3 percent of his administration's stimulus funds went to small businesses. The majority of stimulus funds that have gone to Fortune 1000 firms that haven't created one net new job in over 30 years. It's no wonder our nation's unemployment rate is alarmingly high.
•He reduced transparency in federal contracting data by removing the parent company Duns Number from the public's view in the federal government's procurement database, which makes it easier for large businesses to commit contracting fraud and hijack small business contracting dollars. Federal investigators and watchdog groups use the parent company duns number to catch large contractors that try to pass off their divisions or subsidiaries as small businesses.
•He reduced transparency in federal small business contracting programs by apposing the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act that would prove that large prime contractors have received billions of dollars in federal small business contracts. A study by the AP found that the Obama administration is less transparent than the George W. Bush administration.
•He renewed a program that allows prime contractors to ignore their small business subcontracting goals. The Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program (CSPTP), which is a 20-year-old TEST program, has never been evaluated and allows prime contractors to avoid subcontracting requirements of the Small Business Act.
Again, when you realize that small businesses are the engine of job creation and economic growth, I can't think of any other way to describe President Obama than anti-small business. And he's clearly owned and controlled by the Fortune 1000 companies that want every single federal contracting dollar
Like I always say: if you stop listening to Obama read his speeches and start watching what he does, he's anti-small business.