1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am asking you to oppose the SBA’s proposed expansion of the federal definition of a “small business.” I am a small-business owner, and I strongly support federal policies that help small businesses compete. I understand there may be legitimate concerns about businesses abruptly losing small-business status when they barely cross an arbitrary threshold. Congress and the SBA could address that through reasonable transition periods or graduated benefits. But that is not what this proposal does. The SBA estimates that its proposed changes would make approximately 114,500 additional firms eligible for small-business status. In some industries, companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue—and even thousands of employees—could qualify as “small.” That fundamentally undermines the purpose of small-business programs. A genuinely small company cannot compete on equal terms with a corporation worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Larger firms have greater access to capital, specialized staff, lawyers, accountants, procurement experts, technology, and economies of scale. Small-business programs are not a punishment imposed on successful companies. They exist to counter the enormous structural advantages large companies already possess. Eventually outgrowing those programs is not being “penalized for success.” It means the business succeeded. Small businesses are essential to competition, innovation, entrepreneurship, local economies, and preventing economic power from becoming increasingly concentrated among a handful of enormous corporations. Federal contracting set-asides and other small-business programs help ensure that government spending does not simply flow to the largest companies with the greatest resources. If existing size standards create unfair cliff effects, fix those cliff effects. Create reasonable transition periods. Consider graduated assistance. Periodically adjust legitimate thresholds for inflation and changing industries. But do not solve the problem by redefining huge companies as small businesses and forcing actual small businesses to compete against them for programs specifically created to give small businesses a fighting chance. Please oppose this proposal and protect meaningful federal small-business standards.