For a couple of years, the best idea comes from studies done by Eagle Eye (Paul Murphy) for Congress--possibly Kerry's committee. They have been well publicized.

To really nail this perennial question, you have to look at what small business gets in total. First, there's the 23 percent mandate that you cite for federal prime contracts. The second part is the additional revenue small businesses receive as subcontractors to other than small businesses.

Hardly anyone would tell you that that the total number is any less than 30 percent of total contract spending, and many think that it's a lot higher. But we have no stats until FPDS-NG is improved, and the other mandated data bases are fully built.

I think that there is to much focus on small business. Many small businesses turn into nothing more than clearinghouses that subcontract all meaningful work to the big 5 on the back end. Additionally, these organizations can charge G&A (administrative fees) and fee (profit) on this work. When this happens the effective "pass through" fees can be very high (over 15%).

I think that there should be classes of large businesses. For example, SAIC has 45,000 employees and $7.2B in revenue a year. I think that they should be in a "jumbo" class. Whereas there are many other "large" businesses with a few thousand employees and generate $200M-ish revenue a year.

These "large", but not "jumbo" companies are a great alternative to the big 5 and small businesses. They have the track record to field quality professionals, which many small businesses cannot, and lack the OCI issues that many of the "jumbo" firms have (or the sleazy lobbyists).

I wish that we would focus on directing procurements to these solid, large (but not huge) contracting firms. I think that they are a better value to the Government.

"But the law is on the books. Small businesses are supposed to get 23 percent."

And in other news, a government spokesman also announced this afternoon that there will be free beer tomorrow.

Idiots!!! First of all G&A and Profit are not "pass throughs" they are, as their name suggests, G&A and profit - both of which are mandated by accounting rules set forth in the FAR and CAS. As far as small business set asides - there are recent rules pertaining to recertification of small business sizes. Small businesses serve a purporse, however to impose an arbitrary quota on the % of dollars which get set aside by an agency or prime contractor for small business makes no sense.

How would we, as daily consumers of goods and services function if we were required to buy 23% of our goods and services from small businesses? Would it mean that we would have to each cut down on our periodic visits to CostCo, Walmart, or Target? Would we have to periodically buy our food from mom and pop grocery stores? What if there are no mom and pop grocery stores that sell the products we want or need? And at the end of the day, if we did manage to find a mom and pop store that did sell what we wanted/needed - would we necessarily get the best deal?

It is somewhat hypocritical for "advocates" to scream "WE WANT TO PAY LESS" while at the same time insisting that we set aside X% to small businesses.

G&A and fee may be regulated by the Government, but in the end Government Agencies are paying a high premium to have the same large companies do the work. How is paying 15% more the same services a best value? Government program managers do it all the time to get their small business credit.

The interesting part about this is that Kerry actually got the amendment requiring TSA to comply with the SBA *last* July! How's that for "news"?

How can the SBA help small businesses when they themselves are involved in the corruption that hurts small businesses?

Robins Air Force Base hired a large business to act as representatives of the government in evaluting my plans. This company, Intergraph, then blocked the sponsorship of my contract which they were suppose to be negotiating with me for the government.

When I filed a protest, the government assisted the large buisiness in lying to the GAO about their involvement. This got my protest dropped, but I kept fighting.

So, to continue blackballing my company from getting the contract, they put it under the SBA 8(a) program. The SBA, having the information about the bid rigging, enabled the 8a company to get the contract, and the 8a company then teamed with the big business on the contract. This big business was used by the government to assist me in writing the statement of work.

Now, Robins Air Force Base, through Congressman Kinston, is getting $3.5 million earmarked for a system to be implemented at RAFB.... guess who is a big contributor of the Congressman? The big business that helped me write the statement of work.

Small Business can't compete against this. At least four small businesses who were teaming together were shut out of this set aside because of the corruption.

You can't stop corruption if our elected officials promote it and earmark funding for projects and their pet corporations.

I have 3 lawsuits trying to make a change for small businesses. The SBA hurts us through big businesses because they do nothing about the complaints unless someone files a lawsuit.

I blog about this here