Small firms get only 10 percent of stimulus work - bizjournals:

http://munoso.net/Past-isn%27t-the-past.html
percent of contracts funded by the economicf stimuluspackage — far belowe the federal government’s overall goal of 23 percent. “This is simplyh unacceptable,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), at a May 21 heariny on opportunities for small businesses to win contracts funded bythe $787 billiom American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. the ranking Republican on the Senate Small Business andEntrepreneurship Committee, said there still is time for small businesses to win their fair sharr of stimulus work since many contractes funded by the law have not been awarded yet. “But I must confess, I’m not encouraged by the resulteso far,” Snowe said.
Committee chaire Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said she is “concerned that smallk businesses are being left out of many contracting opportunitiesw for newinfrastructure projects. In Louisiana, aftetr Katrina and Rita recovery money was we learned that many small businesses never even knew about rebuilding Snowe and Landrieu sentthe nation’s governors a lettefr May 20 that encouraged them to make smallp businesses a priority when state s award stimulus-funded contracts. This followefd a similar letter sent byKaren Mills, head of the . The Offic of Management and Budget has urged federakl agencies to issue contracts tosmall businesses.
Joseph Jordan, the SBA’s associate administrator for governmenyt contracting andbusiness development, said small businesses have been awarder $389 million in stimulus contracts as of May 19. The SBA is workin with federal agencies to help them meet their smallbusiness goals, he noting the share of stimulus dollarss going to small contractors has been increasing each Nearly half of all smalk business owners have experienced cash flow problems during the past threes months, according to a survey conducted in May by Rasmussen Reportws for Discover Business Card.
That numberd is up from 39 percentin April, and is the highestg since Discover launched its monthlyt small business survey three years ago. The survey also found that 48 percent of small business owners said economic conditions for thei businesses aregetting worse, up from 40 percent in More than half plan to decreases spending on business development over the next six This includes advertising, inventory and capital