Every now and then, federal lawmakers are seized with budget cutting zeal, which inspires them to start hunting for wasteful spending in federal programs. That sort of thing is going on right now, in both the House and the Senate. Late last month, the House Committee on Small Business held a hearing on whether certain SBA programs were duplicative and/or wasteful, particularly SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs. The SBA has three main entrepreneurial development programs: the Small Business Development Center program (SBDC), SCORE (formerly the Service Corps of Retired Executives), and the Women’s Business Center program (WBC). In addition, there are programs targeting specific populations (veterans, Native Americans) and programs that kick in under certain circumstances (federal procurement, microfinance). And that’s just at the SBA. All told, there are 80 economic development programs (including those entrepreneurial development programs) across four different federal agencies.

During the hearing, there was a great deal of talk about the fact that there are so many programs, at the SBA and elsewhere, that do essentially the same things — including American Express OPEN, the private sector service provider representative at the hearing. At the same time, those same witnesses urged Congress not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The issue, they all said, was to reach every small business owner who needed services, wherever they are. No one agency, program or even private sector provider is going to be able to do that. The real trick is to coordinate everyone’s efforts so that services delivery is as efficient as possible. In fact, that’s the real issue: efficiency, not duplication. The good news is that no one was talking about getting rid of any of the SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs. In spite of the partisan sniping and the fiscal austerity rhetoric, nobody went that far.