Thank you, Chairman Rockefeller. Welcome back and thank you for holding this very critical hearing today, Mr. Chairman, because obviously, we are all grappling with the devastating effects and the sad state of affairs when it comes to the…

Well, you know, and just Mr. Press and Mr. Henderson, you say that and that's--that also sounds well and good, but these are individuals who have been faithful, and the one I cited for 80 years, and that's been generally true, 80 years…

This is simply unacceptable. I hope if anything that is learned from this hearing is that small businesses deserve their fair share of federal funds.

Unfortunately, there has not been a great track record by the Small Business Administration in the years because of not enough personnel to review these contracts and to make sure that they are living up to the obligations and living up to…

Well, if I was running a small business, what would be the first step?

I think it is very important.

I appreciate the suggestions you have made about how each agency should account for how the stimulus dollars are spent.

So you expect that, through the stimulus work, that you can survive this year?

I firmly believe that the Federal Government must unleash the job creation potential of small businesses to drive our nation's economic recovery.

So we want to see that steady increase keep going and not plateau until it is at or above the 23 percent.

We need more PCRs, without question, to look at and review these contracts, these bundled contracts, and unbundling them, because that is a huge issue.

We are asking today that the Committee move expeditiously to pass the legislation drafted last year by Senators Kerry and Snowe as an amendment to the DoD Authorization Bill.

Because it is critical that we do it now because of this number, before it is too late.

Half of all the procuring federal agencies have yet to achieve the women's business contracting goal.

If the DBE program goes away, which is the backbone of our country, so will the majority small business companies that do under 17 million three years annually.

I am glad the omnibus legislation removed the rule of women's contracting goals of the SBA because it was not right.

It means jobs. For every $140,000 that is spent in contracting dollars, it means one job.

It is major. And two weeks ago we were out here with our women's group, Women First, and 14 of our women were here from across the United States.

I think that it is key to be at the front end of it to identify those opportunities and not when it is too late.

I would like to see every small business set-aside have a footnote in there that they come to their local PTAC.

The Washington Post did a story today on tracking stimulus spending.

That is terrible, at anytime, but especially now.

And there is no doubt about it, except that oftentimes they are overwhelmed running their business on a daily basis.

Well, I think with all exceptions on this contracting, go to 2007, the only area where we have achieved it was small disadvantaged businesses at this point.

Unfortunately, they have been cut significantly.