The Importance Of The Small Business Administration Submitted By: Steven Fitzgerald Despite being overworked and underfunded, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is taking body shots from all sides. And it just isn't fair. How many people can truthfully say to a small business owner, "I am from the government and I'm here to help?"

Leading the way in disbursing federal subsidies and other help is the SBA, whose mission statement says that its role is to "maintain and strengthen the nation's economy by aiding, counseling, assisting and protecting the interests of small businesses."In the wake of 9/11, the SBA issued $1.2 billion in disaster loans. In just 90 days since the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, the SBA has already dispersed $1.3 billion to thousands of small business owners under the regulatory guidelines established via federal legislation on Capitol Hill.But USA Today recently reported that SBA workers are reporting low morale, high stress.

Swamped by disaster loan applications from victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, the SBA ranked last in a recent study of employee morale at 30 federal departments and agencies. The agency's low job satisfaction score is a drop from its 24th-place ranking in a similar survey of 28 agencies and 150,000 federal workers two years earlier.Meanwhile, the left is comparing SBA to FEMA. Blackenterprise.com reported that SBA Administrator Hector Barreto recently addressed Capitol Hill for yet another attempt to "spin away the SBA's failure to help small businesses in the Gulf Coast" devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Reminiscent of former FEMA director Mike Brown's attacks, opined the magazine's Web site, officials are publicly speaking out against Barreto. Sen. John Kerry, top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, issued the following statement:

"This administration should be ashamed of the SBA's response to Katrina. Hector Barreto is not doing a heck of a job. Out of more than 300,000 applications, they've only approved 20,251. Small business owners throughout the Gulf Coast are still hurting months after Katrina, but the Small Business Administration's leadership is offering them only hurricane force spin."While the Democrats attacked, the Libertarians followed suit. According to one Libertarian scholar, there is no factual reason to base policies on the idea Click here for the rest.