I worked on President Obama’s first campaign. I met wit him and talked with him about my concerns about federal small business programs. He invited me to join his Small Business Advisory Council. Our job was to come up with a list of recommendations to bolster federal programs to assist small businesses.
He even released the statement, “It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.”
Shortly after President Obama was elected the Small Business Advisory Council was disbanded and all the recommendations we had worked so long and hard to develop were scrapped. At that point I began to get the feeling I had been duped by yet another crooked politician.
In November of 2008 I predicted President Obama would attempt to close the Small Business Administration by combining it with the Department of Commerce. He proved me right in January of 2012 when he announced his intention to do exactly that.
SBA Administrator Karen Mills resigned on February 11, 2013 and no replacement was announced. The Agency went without a leader for 13 months.
I launched a national campaign to expose President Obama’s plan to close the SBA and went on national television and radio sounding the alarm. In January, several journalists published stories agreeing with me. Ty Kiisel of Forbes stated, “I agree with Lloyd Chapman, head of the American Small Business League, cited by Harrison, when he warns that this is just another attempt to shutter one of the only government agencies in place to help the nation’s nearly 30 million small business owners.”
Within a matter of days Obama nominated Maria Contreras-Sweet to head the SBA and all talk of combining the SBA with the Department of Commerce came to a halt.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) was the only national small business advocacy group to speak out against Obama’s attempt to close the SBA and dismantled all federal programs to assist the nation’s 28 million small businesses.
Now President Obama has a new plan to kill federal small business programs, cheat small business out of billions of dollars and divert all federal contracts to corporate giants.
His latest plan is to raise the federal definition of a small business so high, legitimate small businesses will be unable to compete for federal small business contracts. Under the guise of anonymous comments they have received and more importantly inflation, the Obama Administration is proposing to raise the federal definition of a small business to a level that will include most of the largest firms in any given industry.
Imagine how easy it will be for the federal government to claim they have complied with the 23% small business contracting goal if more than 99% of all U.S. firms qualify as a small business. Now imagine how difficult or impossible it will be for legitimate small businesses to land government small business contracts when they have to compete with many of the largest firms in their industries.
Once again, who is the only national small business advocacy group opposing President Obama’s plan to push thousands of legitimate small businesses out of the federal marketplace to make more room for corporate giants? You guessed it, Lloyd Chapman and the American Small Business League.
Notice the complete and total absence of any other national organization that claims to represent the interests of American small businesses. The SBA is the only agency in the entire federal government established to help small businesses. The single largest economic stimulus program in history to direct existing federal infrastructure spending to the middle class is the Small Business Act that stipulates that a minimum of 23% of all federal contracts be awarded to small businesses.
Any firm that claims to be a national advocate for small businesses that has not taken a stand to stop the Obama Administration from closing the SBA and ending all federal programs to assist the 28 million small business where most Americans work is a sham, a fraud and most likely headed by a con man and a liar.
The great Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.” The American Small Business League has done it. We have stopped President Obama from closing the SBA so far. We have won over two dozen federal lawsuits exposing fraud in federal small business programs. We have written legislation such as H.R. 1622 to stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. We have released hundreds of national press releases and blogs advocating for small businesses. I have done more national television and radio appearances advocating for small business than every other alleged small business advocacy group in America combined. I think its time the American Small Business League gets the recognition in the national media it so richly deserves.
