Miller vs. Small Businesses

Government should support small business development, not the growth of the federal administration. This week, the US Congress passed H.R. 5819 to reauthorize the “Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Research” programs. The bill passed with a vote of 368-43, with 75% of House Republicans voting for it. However, Representative Jeff Miller, chose to vote against small business development.

The programs are a 25-year-old government-wide initiative that have funded 85,000 projects for $18 billion, about $2.3 billion annually, and are the largest source of federal support for private-sector technological innovation. Funding for the programs comes from federal agencies with research and development budgets. The 11 largest agencies, such as the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and NASA, must reserve 2.5% of their budgets for the SBIR/SBTTR programs. Small businesses can receive grants to assist in developing technologies that will serve the research and development needs of those federal agencies. Priority is given to applications from companies in rural areas and depressed areas, from veterans, and from energy-efficient organizations.

The Bush administration opposed the resolution saying, basically, that it reduced funding for priority federal agency research activities, provided subsidies for business development, and that it could lead to inappropriate set asides for venture-capital businesses. Why would Representative Jeff Miller vote against 85% of his colleagues in Congress, against privatization for research and development, and on the side of an administration headed by a President with a 71% disapproval rating?