American Small Business League to Governor Romney: You Should Challenge President Obama’s Definition of a Small Business in the Next Debate

PETALUMA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following is a statement by American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman:

“It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.”

Last week I was on the Mike Siegel Radio Show, and he and I were talking about your campaign. We’re puzzled that you’re not talking about President Obama’s abysmal track record for small businesses. Here are some of the ideas that Mike and I talked about that we think would help your campaign.

In the last debate, President Obama challenged your definition of a small business, saying that one of your policies would make Donald Trump a small business. In the next debate, why don’t you challenge President Obama’s definition of a small business?

According to the most recent information from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), some of the firms that the Obama administration is giving federal small business contracts to include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Finmeccanica in Rome with 76,000 employees, British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce and my favorite, Rosoboronexport, an international arms dealer owned by the Russian government. The Obama administration gave more than $370 million in federal small business contracts to Rosoboronexport.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, small businesses have created more than 90 percent of all net new jobs. A report from the Kauffman Foundation found that small businesses have created virtually 100 percent of all net new jobs since 1980. Small businesses generate more than half the gross domestic product, employ half the private sector workforce, and more than 90 percent of U.S. exporters are small businesses.

I think this subject is perfect for you to talk about when Obama claims that you’re shipping jobs overseas. My organization will be glad to give you any and all information that you need. It will show you that the Obama administration is giving billions of dollars in U.S. government small business contracts to categories such as Miscellaneous Foreign Contractors and a wide variety of foreign-owned companies. We’re talking about billions of federal contract dollars that by law should go to American small businesses but have been diverted to corporate giants around the world.

And you might ask President Obama about his broken campaign promise. In February 2008 he released a statement that said, “It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.” He has not done that. In fact, the most recent data from FPDS shows that 72 of the top 100 small business contractors are actually large business. NBC ran a story on this in July and found companies such as Oracle and IBM winning federal small business contracts. Why don’t you ask President Obama about that in the next presidential debate?

Every year that President Obama has been in office, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as the number one management challenge at the Small Business Administration.

The Obama administration has failed to take any action, adopt any policy or enact any legislation to end these rampant abuses. So to me, President Obama challenging your definition of a small business is like the pot calling the kettle black. There is a tremendous amount of documentation to show that, despite his unending rhetoric about small businesses and investing in the middle class, he’s diverted hundreds of billions of federal small business contract dollars to some of the biggest companies around the world.

I’ll give you a phrase I use almost every time I talk about President Obama. The American people need to quit listening to what he says and start watching what he does. When you watch what he does, you will see that he is the most anti-small business president in recent history.