House Republicans announced Thursday a $400 million savings in the operations of the House of Representatives. Under GOP leadership, the House has achieved these savings over three straight years. We need a similar effort to make serious spending reductions across all federal government agencies and programs. Despite the $16.7 trillion debt, this Small Business Administration’s budget proposal still calls for unnecessary new spending, such as $57 million for unproven pilot programs. That spending culture is hard to uproot, but it must change to spare our country more serious fiscal pain over the coming years.

This week, the Small Business Committee examined the SBA’s budget proposal. It left much to be desired in terms of addressing our nation’s federal deficit. The Committee’s hearing on Wednesday made clear that a majority of Committee Members favor an SBA that cuts duplicative and wasteful programs rather than proposing new initiatives that have not been fully vetted. The budget realities do not afford that luxury. The priorities set forth in the SBA’s budget dismiss congressional authority, ignore chronic mismanagement issues at the SBA, and disregard the serious need to streamline programs to find real savings. Every agency of the administration should recognize the nation’s urgent need for responsible spending restraint.

Sam Graves
Chairman

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On Thursday, the Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and Workforce held a hearing on the small business Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) workforce shortage and how immigration reform could help address the problem. Many small businesses report a shortage of workers with post-secondary and advanced degrees in STEM disciplines. According to the NFIB, more than one out of three small business owners who hired or tried to hire in the last three months had trouble finding qualified applicants, while another study found that by 2018 there will be more than 200,000 jobs requiring graduate-level STEM training that businesses will not be able to fill with native-born workers.

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