Senator: No "Hidden Agenda" in Hearing on SBA Sen. Tom Coburn says he does not intend to kill federal small business programs. Some small business advocates raised alarms after Coburn (R-OK) invited an economist who favors abolishing SBA to testify at a hearing before his Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security. The witness, Veronique de Rugy, is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. In a paper published by AEI and an article on Forbes magazine’s website, she argued: “It’s time to abolish the SBA and get rid of subsidies aimed at small business. Policymakers should instead establish a tax and policy environment that encourages all firms with strong growth potential to realize that potential.” Women Impacting Public Policy called Coburn’s hearing “an insult to small businesses.” The senator’s spokesman, John Hart, said, “This is not a hearing to call for the abolition of the SBA.” He said Coburn is examining the effectiveness of the agency’s programs: “He is doing this for every agency of the federal government.” Other witnesses scheduled to testify include SBA Administrator Hector Barreto and Jonathan Bean, a professor at Southern Illinois University and the author of Big Government and Affirmative Action: The Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration. In her paper, de Rugy attacked the conventional wisdom that small businesses create the vast majority of new jobs in America: “[T]he percentage of people who work at ‘small’ companies has, at 50%, remained roughly constant over the last decade. If small businesses are creating so many new jobs, why hasn’t this percentage increased?” She cited research by the economist David Birch showing that a small number of fast-growing companies such as FedEx and Apple Computer are the real engines of job growth. Birch called such companies “gazelles.” “It would make the most sense for government policies to target gazelles,” de Rugy wrote. “Unfortunately, no one can identify a gazelle before it takes off.” Lloyd Chapman, president of the American Small Business League, said, “What she fails to acknowledge is that small businesses are where most Americans work and where most U.S. tax revenue is derived.” Chapman said Coburn’s hearing is part of a campaign by some Republicans to kill SBA. In a press release, Coburn called the League’s statement “a false and deliberate distortion.” He added, “As a practicing physician in an entity that would be classified as a small business, it is absurd to suggest that I have a hidden agenda to harm small business.” Coburn also charged that SBA officials had been illegally lobbying to try to head off the hearing. An SBA spokesman denied any lobbying. The hearing was scheduled for April 6, too late for this issue of Set-Aside Alert.