This is a subscriber-only article.

Save 20% on Entrepreneur+ during our Spring Growth Flash Sale

Use code SPRING20 at checkout.

Subscribe Now

Already have an account?

Sign in
Entrepreneur Plus - Short White
For Subscribers

Under Fire The SBA's Office of Advocacy faces the fight of its life.

By Janean Chun

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You may not consider the U.S. Small BusinessAdministration's Office of Advocacy a hotbed of controversy,but below the surface runs a stream of wildly disparate accounts ofthe office's validity.

Established in the mid-1970s to give small businessrepresentation, research and policy analysis, the Office ofAdvocacy in its heyday had a staff of 75 and a research budget of$5 million. Today, staff has been reduced to 48 and the researchbudget zeroed out, with a stipulation allowing the SBAAdministrator to redirect monies of up to $700,000 tosmall-business research.

"The problem is the government knows a lot about virtuallyeverything except small business," says chief counsel of theOffice of Advocacy Jere Glover. "We know more about broccolithan we do about small business."