Corporate Giants Force Obama to Drop Campaign Promises, According to the American Small Business League
Obama Drops Campaign Promises to Assist Middle Class
| Source: American Small Business League
PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwire - November 25, 2008) - The following is a statement by the American
Small Business League:
During the 2008 presidential election cycle, President-elect Barack Obama
made two key campaign promises which would have directed billions of
dollars into the middle class economy. With the election behind him, it
seems that President-elect Barack Obama has now broken his promise to enact
a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry which would have
provided a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to American families, as well as
his promise to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to
corporate giants.
Prior to his election, President-elect Obama made a promise to initiate a
windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry to fund a $1,000 tax
rebate for families. The promise was displayed prominently at the top of
the economy section of Obama's campaign website. That same information was
transferred to Obama's transition website, www.change.gov, but was recently
removed in an unceremonious and abrupt manner. (Pre-change,
http://www.asbl.com/documents/Economy_Change.pdf ; Post-change,
http://change.gov/agenda/economy_agenda/)
In February, President-elect Obama said, "Small businesses are the backbone
of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time
to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate
giants."
(http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)
Since 2003, a series of more than a dozen federal investigations have found
that every year billions of dollars in federal small business contracts are
diverted to some of the largest corporations in the United States and
Europe. Investigative stories by ABC, CBS, and CNN
(http://www.asbl.com/media2.php) have all found that billions of dollars in
government small business contracts actually went to firms such as Dell,
Home Depot, John Deere, Xerox, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, GTSI, General
Dynamics, L-3 Communications, Titan Industries, Northrop Grumman,
Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace (BAE).
Obama's pledge to end the diversion of small business contracts to
corporate giants has now been completely eliminated from the change.gov
website.
The sudden elimination of these two issues from change.gov would seem to
indicate that large corporations are already flexing their muscles with the
Obama Administration and demonstrating their ability to control
presidential policy over the will of the American people.
"He hasn't been inaugurated yet and we are already witnessing the
elimination of policies that would have greatly benefited the middle class
economy in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns in our
lifetimes," President of the American Small Business League Lloyd Chapman
said. "I endorsed him, I voted for him, and I supported him and now I feel
betrayed. He is obviously already going back on campaign promises. I think
all small business owners should be concerned. Based upon the extremely
low priority that Obama has placed upon small business issues, it would not
surprise me if he tried to completely close the Small Business
Administration by combining it with the United States Department of
Commerce."