U.S. Small Business Administrator Karen Mills: Sequester hurting ...

MOBILE, Alabama ? Sequestration is "very bad for small business" and could end up hurting suppliers for ship building operations like those in Mobile, U.S. Small Business Administrator Karen Mills said.

"Small businesses, particularly those who supply a ship like this, will be suffering," Mills said today shortly after ceremoniously breaking a bottle of champagne while serving as sponsor for the newly constructed USNS Millinocket, a joint high-speed vessel constructed at Austal USA in Mobile.

"Over 200 small businesses participated in making the Millinocket," she added. "All across Alabama and all across the nation, small businesses will be cut back as a result of the Navy and military cutbacks due to the sequester."

The U.S. House Small Business Committee is planning for an April 24 meeting to discuss how Mills' administration will handle spending as the SBA faces the sequestration.

"We will work very hard with Congress to make sure every dollar that comes to the Small Business Administration is tied to things that will help small businesses," Mills said.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., in a letter dated April 3 to Mills, questioned how the agency plans to conduct its core functions in a time of limited budgetary resources. Also, Graves ? chairman of the committee ? requested information about traveling costs by SBA employees to conferences through September 30, 2013, and other expenses not specified in the Small Business Act.

"We have made sure when we take those dollar cuts we have to do for sequestration that we do it in accordance to the way statue is written and in accordance with the mission of the agency which is to make sure all dollars go to things that promote small businesses to grow and create jobs," Mills said.

The initial $85 billion in sequester cuts went into effect on March 1, threatening lead to layoffs of thousands of government workers and defense contractors.

John Sharp, Press Register

Source: http://blog.al.com/live/2013/04/us_small_business_adminstrator.html

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