National Coalition Requests That the Small Business Administration Stop Fabricating Small Business Contracting Numbers ...

PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwire -06/07/12)- The following is a statement by the American Small Business League:

A coalition of small business advocates, trade organizations, businesses and non-profit organizations led by the American Small Business League (ASBL) has sent letters to the Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting greater transparency in federal small business contracting. This precedes the release of the SBA's annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard, which is due out this summer and known for overstating the percentage of contract dollars awarded to small businesses.
www.asbl.com/karenmills.pdf
www.asbl.com/jeffreyzients.pdf
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"The government must ensure that small business data is accurate and timely -- small businesses and the public deserve to know whether the government is actually close to small business contracting goals," said Scott Amey, General Counsel at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). "Moreover, enhanced competition and small business opportunities are good for taxpayers and great for the economy."

The federal government has a statutory goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime contract dollars to legitimate small businesses, but has never accomplished this goal. To make matters worse, the SBA overstates the percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses by including contracts awarded to large businesses. The SBA also overstates the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by dramatically understating the federal acquisitions budget, including classified and unclassified contracts.

"It is important to accurately report federal agencies' priorities and performance levels in meeting the 23 percent small business goal set by Congress in 1997 that goes unmet year after year," said Roger A. Campos, President & CEO of the Minority Business RoundTable. "Failing to meet these goals has cost America's small and minority businesses billions in lost opportunities."

Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have found billions of dollars in federal small business contracts flowing into the hands of corporate giants. Following fiscal year 2011, which ended in September, the SBA Office of Inspector General named the fact that procurement flaws allow large firms to obtain small business awards and agencies to count contracts performed by large firms towards their small business goals as the SBA's top management challenge for the seventh consecutive year.

"During his campaign, President Obama promised to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants," said Lloyd Chapman, President of the ASBL. "It is time for President Obama to force the SBA to stop fabricating these numbers. They need to tell the truth, which is that small businesses get a small fraction of what the SBA says they do."

The undersigned individuals and organizations have endorsed this effort:

American Small Business League (ASBL)
Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
Minority Business Round Table (MBRT)
Fairness in Procurement Alliance (FPA)
Charles Tiefer, Professor of Government Contracting, University of Baltimore Law School
Oregon State Chamber of Commerce
Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce
North Clackamas County Chamber of Commerce
Leadville/Lake County Chamber of Commerce
Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce
Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce
The Blount Partnership
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota
Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (Southern California)
Business Coalition for Fair Competition (BCFC)
Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA)
African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania
Queens Chamber of Commerce
Eyes Cream Shades
Public Citizen
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for Ohio
Washington (Il) Chamber of Commerce
Ayden Chamber of Commerce
Melbourne Regional Chamber of East Central Florida

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Farming Talk: Opportunity is missed by new Coalition budget - Shropshire Star

The Budget represented a missed opportunity for the Treasury to introduce measures that might have helped farmers.

Chancellor George Osborne was right to focus on growth and I was pleased to see measures that could create a more competitive business environment in the UK.

John Mercer

In particular, the Chancellor’s ambition to increase exports over the next decade to £1 trillion should benefit farmers who are the backbone of a food and drink industry which constitutes our biggest manufacturing sector.

I was also interested to hear that Michael Heseltine will be conducting a review into how spending departments interact with the private sector to deliver pro-growth policies, and I look forward to more details.

The Treasury has also mentioned a couple of imminent announcements which I await with interest – the review of the Habitats Directive to be published this week, and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) due out next week.

I was pleased that the Chancellor confirmed the latter will contain a commitment to permitting sustainable development, something we welcomed when the draft policy statement was published.

Both announcements could contribute to reducing the regulatory burden on farmers, freeing them to invest and making businesses, and the industry, more competitive.

Nevertheless, before the Budget, I called on the Chancellor to bring forward policies that encourage and incentivise private sector investment in farm businesses, and build on the relative stability farmers have experienced since the economic crisis of 2008.

Changes to the tax treatment of farm reservoirs, for example, are crucial at a time when farmers need to prepare for scarcer water resources in some parts of the country, while a reversal of the decision to reduce the Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) on plant and machinery to £25k would encourage farmers to invest in costly machinery needed on modern, productive farms.

However, these are just a couple of the relatively small measures that seem to have been ignored by the Treasury.

With regard to capital allowances, the Chancellor’s focus on giving Britain the lowest corporation tax rate in the G20 ignores those businesses which are not incorporated. This includes a majority of farms – and it is they who will be discouraged from investing by the reduction in the AIA.

I know farmers will also be unhappy with the Chancellor’s decision not to stop the rise in fuel duty planned for August, especially as rural areas tend to suffer from higher fuel prices while the price of fuel on-farm continues to rise.

Whatever the economic circumstances, farming must prepare itself for a period of sustainable intensification of food production, allowing us to meet the future needs of a growing population. At the heart of this is the need for farmers to invest in their businesses, in new technology and techniques that will allow them to operate competitive and productive enterprises while minimising their environmental impact.

Unfortunately, the Budget didn’t do enough to remove some of the barriers preventing farmers from meeting this challenge.

John Mercer is NFU regional director.

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