The government's fuzzy small biz math (SBA $$ flows to corporate giants)

the blues

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Tue Oct-13-09 12:53 PM
Original message

The government's fuzzy small biz math (SBA $$ flows to corporate giants)

The government's fuzzy small biz math

The Small Business Administration's count of federal money spent with small businesses isn't adding up.

By Ian Mount
Last Updated: October 7, 2009: 9:04 AM ET

(Fortune Small Business) -- In August the Small Business Administration released its annual scorecard tallying federal dollars awarded to small business contractors last year.

The good news? Federal agencies claim they spent $93.3 billion. That's $10 billion more than the year before.

The bad news? It's fuzzy math. Billions of dollars reportedly allocated to small contractors are still flowing to corporate giants. The SBA's top two "small business contractors" for 2008 -- VSE Corp. ($1 billion in annual revenues) and AAI Corp., a division of Textron Inc. (TXT, Fortune 500) ($14.2 billion in annual revenues) -- weren't small at all. They alone accounted for $1.6 billion in federal "small business" spending....

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/07/smallbusiness/sba_federal_money.fsb/index.htm

:wtf:

What is the loophole these corporate giants slime their way through in order to obtain this illicit funding? Is there any punishment meted out beyond slapping their greedy wrists? This is money the US cannot afford to waste, money that small businesses need to help re-invigorate the economy, dammit!

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DJ13

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:06 PM
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1. Now the GOP mantra of protecting "small" business makes sense

They probably wrote the loopholes to allow the big corps to have access to the SBA funds.

After all, who would dare criticize money going to small businesses?

A perfect swindle.

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the blues

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:16 PM
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4. That's exactly what I'm thinking.

I don't know for certain, but it reeks of Republican pro-big-business legislation.

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wolfgangmo

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:08 PM
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2. As a small business owner this outrages me.

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the blues

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:18 PM
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5. Me, too!

Not to mention, as a citizen who believes the success of small businesses will have a hand in the success of the economy as a whole.

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w4rma

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:14 PM
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3. Finally! Some articles on how the SBA money is really being used as a funnel to big business!

Edited on Tue Oct-13-09 01:15 PM by w4rma

And of course this *hurts* small businesses because they can't compete against government subsidized big businesses!

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the blues

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Tue Oct-13-09 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #3

6. Good point.

Not only does the misappropriation of these funds make it less likely that the money will go to deserving small business; it also strengthens their already-larger rivals.

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