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SBA Head Mills Talks to the Times
By Marc Tracy
A lot of non-answer answers in the New York Times interview with Karen G. Mills, the head of the Small Business Administration. "But when the market collapsed, so did S.B.A. lending. Is there a better way to do it?" the Times asks, and while the real answer to that question would involve acknowledging that focusing on supplying credit when demand for credit was historically weak, Mills instead gives some boilerplate about the SBA working with banks. The Times questioner pressed on--generally, the paper did a bang-up job with this--and Mills changed the subject to the 23% federal-contract quota--which is important, but the fact is that the SBA as currently constituted (and, especially, as currently funded!) has really little power to do much to get each of the individual federal agencies to meet their procurement quotas.
In fact, much of the problem is with the way the SBA is established rather than its specific players. It is jerry-rigged to help banks lend to small businesses, and to help small businesses borrow from banks. That's a pretty narrow mandate, and it's one that happens not to be ideal to recessions. The one thing the SBA can that doesn't require too much extra funding or new legislation is to use its clout to advocate for federal policies in other areas that are likely to help small businesses. Mills does a great job with that here, advocating for the sort of insurance exchanges envisioned by the health-care reform bills. In that sense, then, the interview was a success.
Comments (0)November 2, 2009 3:42 PM
