Obama's Latest Speech Dodges Campaign Promise to Small Businesses

"PETALUMA, Calif., April 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Yesterday, President Barack Obama gave a 60-minute speech to the nation regarding the state of the economy. His speech discussed the Obama Administration's five pillars for addressing the economy, however President Obama's plans for helping America's biggest job creators, its small businesses, were conspicuously absent.

"During the campaign, President Obama said he would create millions of jobs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees, and those firms are responsible for over 98 percent of all new jobs in America. (www.asbl.com)

"To date, President Obama has given 100 percent of the stimulus funds to the top 1 percent of American firms. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, those large firms have not created one net new job since 1977.

"In his March 22, 2009 column in the New York Times, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote about President Obama's plan to save the economy and stated, 'This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.' In March, Krugman also stated that Obama's economic policies are almost certain to fail. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/opinion/23krugman.html?_r=1)

"Since 2003, over 15 federal investigations have found that hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to Fortune 500 corporations and thousands of other large businesses in the United States and Europe. (http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)

"Groups like the American Small Business League (ASBL) are angry with President Obama because of his refusal to make good on a February 2008 campaign promise in which he stated, 'It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.'(http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)

"Small business owners around the country are angered and disappointed that President Obama has refused to make good on his campaign promise, and has allowed an estimated $2 billion a week in federal small business contracts to be diverted to some of the largest corporations in the world, including Fortune 500 firms.

"'You don't have to be a Nobel Prize winning economist to figure this out. Small businesses create 98 percent of all new jobs. So far, not only has President Obama not given those companies a dime of the stimulus funding, but he is refusing to end blatant, widespread fraud and abuse in existing government economic stimulus programs for small businesses,' ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said."

SOURCE American Small Business League