PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 1, 2014) - According to the American Small Business League, every summer the Small Business Administration (SBA) releases the federal government's small business contracting statistics for the previous fiscal year. They usually claim the federal government just missed the minimum 23% small business contracting goal required by law.
"For the last few years the SBA generally releases the information late on a Friday afternoon to reduce media pick up. They try to release the report just before a three-day weekend if possible," stated American Small Business League President, Lloyd Chapman.
Last year the American Small Business League (ASBL) predicted the SBA would release the annual report on July 3rd. The SBA released the report on July 2nd.
Every year for the last 12 years the SBA includes billions of dollars in contracts to Fortune 500 firms in their calculations on the percentage of awards to small businesses. In 2012, 235 Fortune 500 firms were included in the SBA's small business data. In 2013, 175 Fortune 500 firms were included.
For the past 12 years, if and when stories emerged that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts were actually awarded to Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses, the SBA has claimed this is the result of miscoding, computer glitches, simple human error and anomalies.
Every year for 12 years no journalist has ever questioned the SBA why the alleged random miscoding errors do not have a random pattern of distribution like flipping a coin, but always end up diverting federal small business contracts to large businesses.
Every year when the SBA releases the falsified small business contracting data, other than the ASBL, no organization claiming to represent the interests of small businesses in America objects to the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.
In 2008 President Obama released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."
Every year of the Obama Administration the SBA Office of Inspector General, Peg Gustafson, who was appointed by President Obama, has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses as the number one problem at the SBA.
In 2009 after investigating the SBA, the Government Accountability Office essentially accused the SBA of encouraging fraud when it released report 10-108 that stated, "By failing to hold firms accountable, SBA and contracting agencies have sent a message to the contracting community that there is no punishment or consequences for committing fraud."
Although the SBA has refused to adopt any policies to stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants, they are currently proposing policies that will allow thousands of large businesses to qualify as small businesses for the purposes of federal contracting.