Good morning and welcome to this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Programs and Oversight of the Committee on Small Business. A special welcome to those who have come some distance to participate and to attend this hearing.
Small businesses represent the backbone of the economy.
The federal government needs to recognize that small businesses are an important cost-effective resource for services and goods. This oversight hearing will give us a chance to hear directly from small business owners about what the federal government is doing right and what it can do to improve the procurement process and expand opportunities for small businesses nationwide. In the past, small businesses have expressed concerns that SBA and other Federal agencies were not providing sufficient and effective assistance to small businesses who wanted to sell to the Federal government or to increase sales through new business opportunities. This hearing will provide oversight of the SBA's entrepreneurial programs and a forum for recommendations which may be offered for improving SBA's performance in aiding small businesses that want to enter the federal procurement arena and to take advantage of new domestic and export business opportunities. In addition, this hearing provides a vantage point for identifying problems that small business owners encounter as the result of over-regulation and burdensome government paperwork.