Campaign launched to stop small business contracts from going to Fortune 1000 firms

The American Small Business League has launched a political campaign to try to stop the Federal Government from its despicable practice of awarding small business contracts to Fortune 1000 companies. The Federal Government has always had an absurd concept of what it means to be a “small business”. By some of their definitions, it means “less than 500 employees”. They also noted that Federal procurement for small businesses is centralized within 50 miles of Washington, D.C., and want a more decentralized program that would stop California companies from being locked out of these deals. From their press release:

Small business owners across the State of California are contacting United States Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and asking for their help to halt the flow of government small business contracts to Fortune 1000 corporations. To date, fourteen different federal investigations have all found that billions of dollars in contracts earmarked for legitimate small businesses have instead found their way into the hands of some of the largest companies in the United States and Europe. The bill, H.R. 1873 the “Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act,” passed through the House of Representatives last week and will allow large companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Rolls-Royce and L3 Communications to keep their existing federal small business contracts for up to five more years. Small business owners are asking Senators Boxer and Feinstein to amend the bill and push for the immediate removal of all Fortune 1000 corporations and other large companies from federal small business contracting programs and to force all firms with existing federal small business contracts to re-certify on an annual basis. The campaign to garner the support of Senators Boxer and Feinstein has been organized by the Petaluma, California-based American Small Business League. If Senators Boxer and Feinstein can convince the Senate to add a provision in the new legislation to close the loophole that allows Fortune 1000 corporations to obtain small business contracts, the ASBL predicts that up to $60 billion a year in federal small business contracts would be re-directed to legitimate small businesses in California as well as every other state in the country.