Saying It Over and Over Again Doesn't Make It True

Dear Editor,
   Well, just because a former commissioner of agriculture says something over and over again, and says it louder, still doesn't make it true ["The Hightower Report," News, Aug. 11]. Fuzzing the facts just to make his point doesn't make the point true.
   The fact remains that the SBA never said it had awarded $25 billion in contracts to small business. It said that was the figure for the entire government. And if a big company, like General Dynamics, buys a small company that has a small business contract from the Department of Defense, that also doesn't mean the SBA awarded a small-business contract to a large company. Saying over and over that the SBA awarded this contract to a large company doesn't make it true.
   
   Mike Stamler
   Washington, D.C.

   [Jim Hightower responds: Once more with feeling: SBA issued a press release in July bragging that the Bushites had produced a sterling record of delivering 25% of all federal contracts to small businesses. My point was that this is a lie. Billions of dollars in “small business” contracts actually are going to the likes of Boeing. You don’t have to be a former ag commissioner to know that the big corporations game the system to extract money meant for the small guys – small-business people all across the country have deplored this scam (check out American Small Business League, www.asbl.com/fraud.php). Also, since the letter writer is the chief press flack for SBA, he knows that even his own agency’s inspector general has condemned this ongoing rip-off.]