I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts...
-- Will Rogers

An entrepreneur's only limit should be his or her own ideas and desire to succeed," states the website of the Small Business Administration, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Nice slogan, but if "empowering America's entrepreneurs" is the SBA's mission, then entrepreneurship includes more than simply the crafting of new ways to offer customers a better mousetrap at a lower price; it includes political entrepreneurship, i.e., milking political connections, gaming the system, or committing outright fraud or bribery in order to procure special favors. This is what has made the SBA notorious for decades of scandals.

Of course, political entrepreneurship is at the core of the SBA, given its reliance on OTM (other taxpayers' money).

Twenty-two years ago Louisiana businessman Kirk Fordice wrote to President Ronald Reagan, complaining that the 8(a) program is snowballing along . . . and leaving legitimate small business contractors bloody, beaten and bankrupt.

The law: A matter of the letter and the spirit

The local Chamber of Commerce was on the march last March – an army of money-makers and money-changers on a mission to make sure voters approved the SPLOST referendum.
Want taxes lowered, streets paved and rain drained? Just vote yes on March 18, chamber members told us time and time again.
The multimedia campaign was devised and delivered with military precision. Call it smart bombardment. TV and radio. Billboards and newspapers. Phone banks and direct mail. No weapon was left undrawn by the business brigade.
· Melting Power [Savannah ]
· Bob, Mate! Screams and howls of the Industry [John Birmingham used be an author]
· Shame of the Cities [INDEPENDENT REVIEW]
· BEYOND THE BROKER STATE [THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW]
· 'Burn, Baby, Burn' [THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW]