New Reports Prove Obama Broke Campaign Promise to Small Businesses

PETALUMA, Calif., July 14, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During his first campaign President Obama released the statement, "Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."

Now, six years later, federal investigators, investigative reports in the media and government watchdog groups agree the Obama Administration has continued to divert billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries.

Public Citizen released a damming investigative report on May 6 titled "Slighted: Accounting Tricks Create False Impression That Small Businesses Are Getting Their Share of Federal Procurement Money, and the Political Factors That Might Be at Play." Public Citizen found the Obama Administration has significantly misrepresented the true volume and percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses by including billions in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms.

The American Small Business League released their annual evaluation of the latest data available from the Federal Procurement Data System and uncovered 179 Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries received federal small business contracts last year. The single largest recipient of federal small business contracts for fiscal year 2014 was Verizon with over $125 million in awarded contracts meant for small businesses.

Other corporate giants the Obama Administration has awarded small business contracts to include: Chevron, Apple, General Electric, AT&T, CVS, Hewlett Packard, UPS, Bank of America, Home Depot, Target, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Oracle, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell International, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Sears and John Deere.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has now joined Public Citizen and the ASBL in objecting to the diversion of billions in federal small business contracts to corporate giants and the fabrication of the federal government's achievement of the 23 percent government wide small business contracting goal.

On July 7, POGO released an article titled "Federal Small Business Contracting: Fact or Fiction?" agreeing with the findings of Public Citizen and the ASBL.

Every year of the Obama Administration, Peg Gustafson, the SBA's Inspector General has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses as the number one problem at the SBA.

On June 26, the Pentagon and the SBA ignored the findings of the SBA Office of Inspector General, Public Citizen, POGO and the ASBL and claimed 24.99% of all federal contracts was awarded to small businesses.

"Our research found small businesses are receiving as little as 5% of all federal contracts each year," stated ASBL President Lloyd Chapman.

Senate Small Business Committee Chairman, David Vitter, is looking into abuses in federal small business contracting programs and has requested the SBA turn over a complete list of all firms that received federal small business contracts last year. 

Contact:  Steve Godfrey
                   [email protected] 
                   707-789-9575

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140811/135286

SOURCE American Small Business League