SBA Targeted for Spending Cut President Bush’s 2005 budget would impose higher fees on the Small Business Administration’s flagship 7(a) loan guarantee program, while cutting the agency’s budget by 10% from the current year and eliminating several smaller loan programs. SBA said the fee increases mean the 7(a) program “would no longer rely on an annual appropriation.” Congress blocked a similar increase in 2002. But Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), ranking minority member of the House Small Business Committee, said the proposal “leaves small businesses shouldering yet another tax.” The president’s budget requests $12.5 billion in loan guarantee authority for the 7(a) program, a 30 percent increase over last year’s request. No money was requested for the Microloan program, which provided $26.5 million in very small loans to start-ups last year. Also left out was funding for the New Markets Venture Capital Company Program, which provides equity investment to businesses in low-income areas, and PRIME and BusinessLINC, a mentoring program for small businesses in low-income areas. The administration has been trying to kill those programs since it took office in 2001, but Congress has spared them so far. The budget also would eliminate federal funding for more than 80 Business Information Centers. Those centers will receive about $14 million from SBA this year.