PETALUMA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
The following is a statement by the American Small Business League:
Any day now the Small Business Administration (SBA) will release their
latest data on the Federal government’s compliance with federal law that
requires a minimum of 23 percent of all federal contracts are awarded to
small businesses.
To avoid media scrutiny of the fabricated and fraudulent data, the SBA
routinely releases the annual data on a Friday afternoon. If possible,
they release the data close to a holiday weekend, such as the fourth of
July.
The SBA will claim to have just barely missed their 23 percent small
business goal. Typically, they claim to have achieved a small business
contracting level in the neighborhood of 22.8 percent.
The Small Business Act Defines a small business as having no more than
1,500 employees, being “independently owned” and not being “dominant in
their field.” These provisions would exclude foreign-owned firms and
publicly-traded firms, such as Fortune 500 firms.
To dramatically inflate the true volume of federal contracts awarded to
small businesses, the SBA will illegally include billions of dollars in
contracts to many of the largest corporate giants around the world.
Neither the Small Business Act nor any other federal legislation
contains any language that would allow a foreign-owned firm, a Fortune
1000 firm, a publicly traded firm or any firm with over 1,500 employees
to legally receive federal small business contracts.
To further inflate the percentage of contracts awarded to small
businesses, the SBA will drastically underreport the actual federal
acquisition budget. Federal law requires small businesses to receive “a
minimum of 23 percent of the total value of all federal contracts.” It
is difficult to pin down the exact total federal acquisition budget, but
of the $3.5 trillion dollar federal budget for 2012, all available
information indicates over $1.2 trillion was spend on acquisitions. The
SBA will drastically misrepresent the total acquisition budget to be
less than $500 billion.
The
SBA Office of Inspector General has named the diversion of federal
small business contracts to large business as the largest problem at the
SBA for the last nine consecutive years. NBC,
CBS,
ABC
and CNN
have covered the story.
The General Accounting Office essentially accused SBA officials of
encouraging fraud in Report
10-108 that stated, “The SBA and contracting agencies have sent a
message to the contracting community that there is no punishment or
consequences for committing fraud.”
The American Small Business League projects, in reality, the nation’s 28
million legitimate small businesses are receiving no more than 5 percent
of all federal contracts or at least $200 billion a year less than
required by law.
American Small Business League
Lacie Schwarz, 707-789-9575
PR Specialist
lschwarz@asbl.com