PETALUMA, Calif.–()–On July 2, the Small Business Administration (SBA) released their FY
2012 federal small
business contracting statistics. In it, they claim small businesses
received 22.25 percent of all federal contracts.
“a minimum of 23 percent of
the total value of all federal contracts.”
Federal law requires a minimum 23 percent of all federal contracts be
awarded to small businesses. Federal law also defines a small business
as being “independently owned,” not being “dominant in the field” and
having no more than 1,500 employees. All three federal definitions of a
legitimate small business would clearly exclude Fortune 500 firms, since
they are publicly owned, and would not meet the federal definition of
“independently owned” and all have more than 1,500 employees.
The SBA’s false claim that small businesses received 22.25 percent of
federal contracts was based on a violation of both statutes in the Small
Business Act that defines a legitimate small business and the statute
that requires small business shall receive “a minimum of 23 percent of
the total value of all federal contracts.”
The total federal budget for FY 2012 was approximately $3.5 trillion.
Based on data from the Federal
Procurement Data System, the acquisition budget for 2012 was
actually approximately $1.1 trillion for unclassified spending alone,
not in the $500 billion range as reported.
Based on the $1.1 trillion in just unclassified acquisitions, legitimate
small businesses should have received a minimum $253 billion in
contracts, not the $89.9 billion the SBA claimed to have awarded.
The SBA also violated the statue that defines a small business by
including billions in awards to many of the largest corporate giants in
the world. Some of the firms included in the SBA’s
small business data include Chevron, Apple, General Electric, ATT,
Hewlett-Packard Verizon, IBM, Dell, Costco, Wells Fargo, Home Depot,
Microsoft, Walgreens, Johnson Johnson, Pepsi, Intel, Coca-Cola, FedEx,
DuPont, Honeywell, Oracle, Delta Air Lines and Sprint. The SBA in their
calculations included over $215 million in contracts to General Dynamics
alone.
NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN have
all covered the story on the diversion of federal small business
contracts to corporate giants.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) estimates legitimate small
business have received approximately $200 billion a year less in federal
contracts than required by law or approximately $2 trillion during the
last ten years.
The ASBL continues to be the only national organization working to end
the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants
and insure legitimate small businesses receive the actual 23 percent of
all federal contracts required by law.
Click here
to watch the ASBL’s latest video