Jan 9, 2008

Top small business advocates in the senate are calling on the White House to boost funding for small business programs in 2009.

The Small Business Administration budgets the White House has delivered since 2001 have been insufficient to meet the needs of the nation’s small businesses, Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, wrote to Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“Congress is doing all it can to repair the damage caused by those inadequate budgets, but can only do so much when the administration sets the base number so low,” the senators wrote in a Jan. 8 letter. Kerry is chairman and Snowe is ranking member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

Inadequate funding has left SBA short-staffed and incapable of providing sufficient oversight to its loan programs, the senators said in a corresponding news release.

While the letter didn’t cite a preferred base number for the agency, the senators said additional money is needed to properly staff SBA, to oversee SBA loan programs and to support government contracting programs like the HUBZone program promoting small businesses in disadvantaged areas and Veterans Business Development program.

The president is slated to deliver his fiscal 2009 budget next month. The president is dedicated to improving SBA to help small businesses and the 2009 budget will reflect that dedication, OMB spokesman Sean Kevelighan said. Kevelighan declined to comment on the specifics of the budget, but said OMB will take the senators’ letter into consideration.

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