Since its inception in 1968 the Small Business Administration’s Section 8(a) set-aside program has been plagued with fraud and bureaucratic ineptitude. Attempts to reform the SBA have failed, much to the detriment of the truly disadvantaged business people who are unwilling to play the agency’s games or who don’t fit its target profile.

Jonathan J. Bean is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of History at Southern Illinois University.
Antitrust, Competition, and MonopolyBureaucracy and GovernmentBusiness and EntrepreneurshipEconomyGovernment and PoliticsRegulation
Other Independent Review articles by Jonathan J. Bean
Winter 2005/06 Adoption of State Lotteries in the United States, with a Closer Look at Illinois
Fall 2000 “Burn, Baby, Burn”: Small Business in the Urban Riots of the 1960s
Summer 1997 Nikolai Bukharin and the New Economic Policy: A Middle Way?
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