Why Do Republicans Hate Small Businesses?

Republican Anti-Small Business History Revealed

In 1953 Congress passed the Small Business Act out of the realization that most Americans worked for small businesses, and that these firms were the heart and soul of our great nation's economy.

During 1984 and 1985 President Ronald Reagan tried to close the Small Business Administration (SBA) and bring an end to all federal programs designed to assist small businesses, including small firms owned by woman, minorities, and veterans.

Senator Carl Levin (D - MI), and other Democratic members of Congress were all that stopped Ronald Regan from achieving his goal.

Again in 1996, Republican members of Congress proposed legislation to close the SBA and bring an end to the federal programs established by the Small Business Act to assist America's 27 million small businesses.

As soon as George W. Bush was elected, one of his first acts as President of the United States was to remove the Administrator of the SBA from the President's Cabinet. Additionally, he cut the SBA's budget more than any other federal agency. Today, the SBA's budget is less than half of what it was during the Reagan Administration.

Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have found fraud, bad policies and a blatant lack of proper oversight in nearly every federal small business program. Several investigations found Bush officials had diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to a "who's who" of corporate giants in the United States and Europe. Thousands of small businesses were forced to close their doors as they unknowingly tried to compete head-to-head with Fortune 1000 firms for even the smallest orders of goods and services.

Every major newspaper in the country has published stories on the Bush Administration's diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to large businesses. Major networks such as ABC, CBS and CNN have all aired investigative stories on the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.

In an attempt to stop further investigative stories on the issue, in 2006 Bush officials removed all data from the government's Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database that could be used by the media, the public and every federal agency to differentiate large businesses from small businesses.

Bush officials then established a policy, which made it easier for large firms to misrepresent themselves as small businesses by omitting the total number of employees and annual revenue fields from the CCR database.

In 2007, the Bush Administration adopted a policy that will allow Fortune 1000 firms to continue to receive government small business contracts until the year 2012.

In response to hundreds of stories in the media on the diversion of government small business contracts to large businesses, Bush officials launched a public relations campaign to convince the public that the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants was simply a myth. (http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/news_07-30.pdf)

President Bush has also refused to implement a federal law, which was passed over seven years ago, establishing a 5 percent set-aside goal for woman-owned firms.

Bush closed the SBA office that was established to assist veteran-owned firms and disabled veteran-owned firms. They even disbanded the Veteran's Advisory Committee.

Recently, the Bush Administration began to dismantle the federal program to help minority-owned firms by suspending applications for the government's Small Disadvantaged Business Contracting Program.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) has won a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the Bush Administration. Information received as a result of the legal victories has proven that hundreds of Fortune 1000 firms are the actual recipients of most federal small business contracts. The ASBL estimates that by the time President Bush leaves office, small businesses will have lost more than $800 billion in federal small business contracts to large businesses.

If Senator John McCain is elected President, he will continue the long Republican history of trying to close the SBA and bring an end to economic programs that were established by the Small Business Act to assist America's 27 million small businesses.

Follow Lloyd Chapman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LloydChapman

Comments

[PeaceofUs]

Let’s try Trickle Up Economics for a Change!

Income and Wealth Inequality
Increases in wealth, derived without the intention of making more people wealthy, pay no dividends to the accounts of prosperity or peace. Taken together, these many mechanisms represent a full-scale effort to redistribute wealth to the rich. When one points this out as, “class warfare”, it should be obvious which class is successfully lobbying at the other's expense. Many of the accusers do not even realize, they argue for the detriment of their very own households. We end “classless warfare” when we seek a “fair warless class.”
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/4Inequality.htm

[Rule Of Law]

During 1984 and 1985 President Ronald Reagan tried to close the Small Business Administration...

Again in 1996, Republican members of Congress proposed legislation...

As soon as George W. Bush was elected, one of his first acts as President of the United States was to remove the Administrator of the SBA from the President's Cabinet.

Geez, I'd hafta say, just based on, you know, history and stuff, that the Republicans have been waging war against the SBA for a long long time. And it starts right at the top and--trickles down!

[ChrisHurn]

Could you BE any more inflamatory, Lloyd?!? The actions of a few significant Republicans do not represent ALL of them, no matter how prominent they might be. Using your logic, am I to conclude that the demostrators who broke merchant's windows and jumped on police cars during the RNC represent mainstream Democrats? At this point in time, you'd find plenty of Republicans NOT characterizing Bush as a mainstream GOP leader with his excessive spending, among other things. I'd venture to say that mainstream Republicans are just as supportive, if not more so, than Democrats of America's small businesses and entrepreneurs. They certainly have a stronger belief in the individual, rather than the collective. You've done spade work over the past few years in exposing the misappropriation of government contract work from small business to big business... but even in this political season, I'd expect you to be a bit more measured and reasonable when to try to smear all Republicans with such a broad brush. Your headline gets attention, but I don't think you want to be a pariah in the small business community -- it's made up of independents, Democrats, AND Republicans.

[drumz]

Take off your blinders. Read the article again without your rose colored republican glasses on and you will see that what he says is true - the rethuglicans HATE small business and the middle class, the proof is in the pudding.

[Rule Of Law]

Spreading the wealth is not a part of the Fascist dogma.

[FlyTheBlueSky]

I don't know why the media and Obama's campaign did not pick up on it, but the McCain campaign was calling Cindy McCain's business a small business - with revenues of a few hundred million dollars...

[garnement21]

Just like Sen. McCain considers $5,000,000 the upper threshold for "middle class," a little insightful history, extracted with difficulty, reveals what the GOP considers "small business." No wonder these folks are terrified of "spreading the wealth." Some All-American fairness could happen.