Congress Should Defund the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy

For Immediate Release: June 18, 2026
Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress should defund or completely rebuild the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA Advocacy), the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards said today in a report documenting the office’s 50-year history of one-sided ideological extremism, hyperpartisanship, and sponsoring of fraudulent research.

“SBA Advocacy has made all of us less safe by opposing and undermining regulations that protect small businesses and the public,” said Amit Narang, consultant to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards and author of the report. “SBA Advocacy long ago abandoned its mission under the law of voicing small businesses concerns, and for decades has pursued the anti-regulatory interests of giant corporate actors over everything else.”

Among its many failures, abuses, and embarrassments, SBA Advocacy:

• Commissioned a report on the costs of regulation that was so poorly constructed and roundly criticized that the office was forced to disavow it;
• Commissioned a second report from the same discredited authors, which was eventually canceled following pressure from Congress;
• Obstructed and attacked the agendas of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden while fast-tracking President Donald Trump’s anti-regulatory policies – in many cases contradicting the interests of the same small businesses the office purports to represent; and
• Worked closely with corporate lobbyists to block regulations on toxic chemicals, protections for women and minority-owned small business owners, environmental safeguards, and worker safety standards.

“Congress never intended to create an agency that is one-sided, ideological, and captured by corporate lobbyists that work for big business,” Narang added. “SBA Advocacy hasn’t just betrayed the public and small businesses – it has routinely defied its most basic statutory obligations for decades. Congress should zero out funding for this corrupt and lawless agency.”