WASHINGTON, D.C., June 10, 2019 — As Congress considers the first reauthorization of the Small Business Act since 2000, the Niskanen Center and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) have organized a coalition letter in support of reforms that will bring the Small Business Administration (SBA) into the twenty-first century.
“The last two decades have seen a disturbing decline in the formation of young, high-growth firms,” notes Samuel Hammond, Director of Poverty Welfare Policy for the Niskanen Center. “The disappearance of small businesses that scale quickly does not bode well for the health and dynamism of the American economy. Fortunately, the bipartisan reauthorization before the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship contains a number of important reforms designed to reverse this trend, in addition to a suite of long-over modernizations.”
Recent work from the Niskanen Center’s Struggling Regions Initiative, headed by Mr. Hammond, and by Dr. Robert Atkinson, President of ITIF, have both highlighted the need for SBA reform. They are joined on their letter by:
Dani Rodrik
Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
John W. Lettieri
Co-founder and President
Economic Innovation Group
John Dearie
Founder and President
Center for American Entrepreneurship
Carrie Hines
President & CEO
American Small Manufacturers Coalition
Sridhar Kota
Executive Director
MForesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight
Oren Cass
Senior Fellow
Manhattan Institute
Mark Muro
Senior Fellow and Policy Director
Metropolitan Policy Program
Brookings Institution
Andrew Stettner
Senior Fellow
The Century Foundation
David Adler
Co-editor of “The Prosperity Puzzle: Restoring Economic Dynamism”
XA Investments
The Niskanen Center is a 501(c)(3) advocacy organization established in 2014 that works to change public policy through direct engagement in the policymaking process.