Friday, July 25, 2008

Bush Administration's Definition of "Small" Business


The Small Business Administration came under fire for exposing the agency to widespread fraud and awarding billions in contracts to large, well known corporations. Consider a partial list of firms getting small business money from the Bush adminstration:

Home Depot
John Deere
Weyerhaeuser
Waste Management
Booz Allen Hamilton
Sprint Communications Company
Perot Systems Government Services
Hewlett Packard Co.

The news article in AllBusiness, a Dun & Bradstreet Company, stated:

In response to the Interior Department report, the American Small Business League (ASBL) reviewed the top 100 recipients of DOI small business contracts for FY2006 and FY2007. It examination was based on data collected by Fedmine.us, which has direct access to federal contract information. ASBL Founder and President Lloyd Chapman has been a longtime critic of lax SBA contracting oversight.

The ASBL said it found that 22 large firms -- mostly Fortune 500 companies -- had received more than $200 million in federal small business contracts in 2006. The following year, 28 large firms received more than $230 million in small business contracts. The awards constituted 26.55 percent of all contract actions awarded to the top 100 for 2007, it noted.