Small Business Goaling Report

It has been a while since our previous newsletter, and a lot has been going on, so I will bring you up to speed as quickly as possible. As you may know, the SBA released its small business goaling report and scorecard on Friday, August 21. The government fell short of its mandated 23 percent small business goal again, coming in at 21.5 percent. The ASBL conducted its own analysis of the data and found that 8 of the top 10 small business contract recipients for 2008 were large firms which received 85 percent of the total dollar amount awarded to the top 10. It looks like business as usual continues as all the usual suspects were included in the data like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, AT&T, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, GTSI, General Electric, and Staples just to name a few. Keith Girard from Allbusiness.com put out a great story on this, you can read it here: http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-structures-ownership/12743713-1.html.

Regarding H.R. 2568, the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act, Congress left for the August recess without moving on the bill, although our sources tell us that we could be seeing movement on the bill in committee this fall. If you have not sent a letter of support to your representatives in Congress, now is time. We need to make our voices heard on these small business contracting issues. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to see another year where Lockheed Martin gets counted as a small business.
One last note regarding the SBIR program, both the House and Senate have passed reauthorization bills, and now a conference committee is attempting to hash out a single bill, as the two versions are very different. Both bills will allow firms that are majority owned or controlled by wealthy venture capitalists be considered small and eligible for small business grants and contracts. The program was given an extension through a continuing resolution and is set to expire on September 30, 2009 if it is not reauthorized.
I wanted to pass this along for the benefit of you and members, so please share this information. We are reaching out for your help on these issues and are asking you to contact your congressional representatives or we would like to obtain an official statement from your chamber on these matters. If you or your members have any questions or would like more information, please contact me directly. Thank you.
Best regards,
Kevin Baron
Kevin Baron Director of Government Affairs American Small Business League 707.789.9575w 707.789.9580f kbaron@asbl.com www.asbl.com