Senate Panel To Clean Up SBA Programs
Jan 31st, 2011 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Politics & PolicyIt’s not just a bunch of new and fanatical Congressional freshmen taking their oversight duties very seriously in their determination to squeeze every taxpayer dollar until it screams for mercy. Suddenly, it has suddenly become fashionable to root out waste, fraud and abuse on Capitol Hill. In fact, even some of those Senate Democrats have indicated that they want to play. Last week, the top two lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship wrote to SBA Administrator Karen Mills and SBA Inspector General Peg Gustafson, requesting their recommendations of programs that can be eliminated or scaled back without hurting small business services.
The intention of Committee to review SBA programs, eliminate whatever they determine to be “duplicative, ineffective, or redundant,” and punch up the program that are left after the purge sounds like a very good idea. However, it is also somewhat ominous, as there is some history here when it comes to Congresspersons take it into their head to eliminate depulicative, ineffective or redundant programs at the SBA. Then, too, it will be interesting and probably revealing to see just what SBA Administrator Karen Mills considers to be dispensable as far as the programs at her agency are concerned. It is possible to waste quite a bit of time speculating but that is not necessary. Senators Landrieu and Snowe have asked Administrator Mills and IG Gustafson for their response no later than February 10. There will be a hearing on the topic shortly thereafter, possibly in combination with or almost immediately after the fiscal 2012 budget hearing.
