Andriea Pleas

March 29, 2012

Small Business Report

Abrams

History of SBA

Since its founding on July 30, 1953, the U.S. Small Business Administration has delivered millions of loans, loan guarantees, contracts, counseling sessions and other forms of assistance to small businesses. It was officially established in 1953, but its philosophy and mission began to take shape years earlier in a number of predecessor agencies. To help small business participate in war production and give them financial viability, Congress created the Smaller War Plants Corporation in 1942. This corporation provided direct loans to private entrepreneurs, encouraged large financial institutions to make credit available to small enterprises, and advocated small business interests to federal procurement agencies and big businesses.

Congress created another wartime organization to handle small business concerns during the Korean War, this time called the Small Defense Plants Administration. Its functions were similar to those of the SWPC, except that ultimate lending authority was retained by a different venue. To continue the important functions of the earlier agencies, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed creation of a new small business agency, Small Business Administration, which still stands today. In the Small Business Act of July 30, 1953, Congress created the Small Business Administration, whose function was to aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns. The charter also stipulated that the small business administration would ensure small businesses a "fair proportion" of government contracts and sales of surplus property. By 1954, the administration already was making direct business loans and guaranteeing bank loans to small businesses, as well as making loans to victims of