Entries from BizBox Blog on Slate tagged with 'procurement'
The Pentagon Goes Small
At least as far as Department of Defense spending goes, small businesses may not have to worry that they are being denied their rightful 23% of all federal contracts much longer. That's because, according to the New York Times, current...
How The Stimulus is Helping Small Businesses
Columnist Rieva Lesonsky notes that February's stimulus had directly helped many small businesses to the tune of many billions of dollars. Specifically, nearly 26% of the money from federal contracts that stem from the additional allocation have gone to small...
Score One for MSNBC!
Good for MSNBC for asking real, tough questions of Small Business Administration official Joseph Jordan. This is how accountability it happens: you confront those in power with their mistakes, in order to let them know they're being watched and judged....
The Contracting Mess? Blame the Banks
Why do small businesses have such difficulty obtaining government contracts? According to the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, this is due in part to "a maze of complicated laws and regulations that make it difficult for them to...
Landing Federal Dollars
Finding itself unafraid to be service-y, the New York Times has a useful guide for small businesses trying to land federal contracts. (We note with added pleasure that the piece is by Sharon McLoone, who used to write a fantastic...
The Federal Contracting Fraud, and How to Fix It
There are two things wrong with the federal government's recently released 2008 contracting numbers. One, as we've already had the displeasure of reporting, is that the amount of federal contracts did not reach the Congressionally mandated level of 23% of...
You Never Give Them Your Money
It should come as no surprise that, as the Washington Post reports today, small businesses, led by the 300,000-strong National Association of Small Business Contractors (NASBC), are none too pleased with the federal government's 2008 contracting numbers. As we reported...
Not Enough Federal Money Going to Small Businesses
Last year, there was a bit of a scandal when it turned out that roughly $5 billion in federal contracts that were reported as having gone to small businesses actually went to very large businesses (usually via subsidiaries), and that...
Indirect Stimulus
Those hundreds of billions in stimulus dollars are still very much being spent, and will continue to be in the coming months and years. Which means, of course, that billions in stimulus-related federal contracts have yet to go to businesses...
Bipartisan Support For Contracting Bill
We wanted to note something briefly about the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act. The bill, which we covered when it was first introduced, was submitted by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) but penned by Lloyd Chapman of the American Small...
Venture Capital Enters a Small Business Warzone
A couple of months ago, we reported that venture capitalists were hoping that Congress would make venture capital-backed businesses eligible to take advantage of federal R&D seed money and tax credits that are allocated for small businesses. They specifically wanted...
Small-Business Contracting Bill Introduced
As the federal government prepares to spend all those stimulus billions, now would seem like an especially ripe time to ensure that small businesses are getting the share of federal contracts that they are legally mandated to win. You might...
Move For Better Federal Contracting
This strikes us as good news. There is a move being led by close White House ally Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) to give federal departmental inspectors general more power to investigate contracting practices. Their main focuses would likely have to...
Is There A Safety in Military Contracts?
One thing we've talked about in discussing federal contracts (and small businesses' attempts to get their fair share of the pie) is a paradox at the heart of President Obama's governing philosophy. You have probably the most liberal president in...
Federal Contracts Galore
We've written before (here, for example) about a paradox concerning President Obama's attitude towards federal contracting. On the one hand, he has already initiated a massive effort to cut back on how much work the federal government is contracting out....
Obama's New Federal Contracting Review
We've previously discussed a compelling tension in how President Obama's policies will affect small business owners who are looking to benefit from government contracts (which federal law mandates that they receive 23% of). On the one hand, you have a...
Landing Federal Dollars
We write a lot about the federal government's small business contracting--mostly its failure to live up to its legally mandated quota of 23% of contracts flowing to small businesses. Today, instead of reporting more bad news, we thought we'd link...
Will Federal Contracting Dollars Rise Or Fall?
It's an important question for small businesses. As Independent Street reminds us, and as we noted when we reported that the federal government had failed to fulfill its legal contracting obligations, 23% of all federal contracts are supposed to go...
The Bush SBA Makes A Change On The Way Out
As Robb Mandelbaum reports in an important new post, the Bush Small Business Administration made a decision, only last week, to reopen the comment period for a rule that would enforce a law that sought to expand greatly the number...
Obama Accused Of Turning Back on Small Businesses
We've written before about the American Small Business League, the organization dedicated to seeing that federal procurement quotas are enforced. As things stand right now, of course, they aren't: the amount of federal contracts that go to small businesses is...
The Misreporting Scandal: The SBA's Official Numbers
So it looks like the Washington Post (our corporate brother) had its numbers right yesterday when it reported that somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 billion in small business contracts awarded last year by U.S. government agencies in reality...
The ASBL's Rolling List
We just wanted to point your way to the American Small Business League's Website, which contains a perpetually updated tally of what it says is the amount small businesses have lost to big corporations in federal government contracts: a...
Flashback: Scandal, On Smaller Scale, Uncovered in July
It was just three months ago that the New York Times reported on two federal government reports--one by and detailing the Department of the Interior, the other by the Government Accountability Office--showing numerous instances of, yes, small business contracts...
Scandal: Small Businesses Not Getting Fair Share of Gov. Contracts
We are proud to say that it is our corporate brother, The Washington Post, that has broken a very important, front-page story: of the $89 billion worth of contracts that U.S. government agencies reported giving to small businesses last...
A Fair Share of Federal Contracts
We've written about the small business community's concern over the federal government's alleged failure to give the proportion required by law of its own contracts to small businesses. A New York Times article explores a more specific group that...
Fixing Small Business Procurement in the Bailout Bill
The American Small Business League, a nonpartisan group (it has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president) that represents 100,000 small businesses nationwide, has been hammering away at a very specific aspect of the $700 billion bailout bill, which was...
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