One of the previously under-appreciated vulnerabilities of our economy exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has been supply chain resilience. Now, rightly, it is a shared priority for all policymakers, and America’s small businesses are a critical piece of strengthening that resilience. An important way to strengthen supply chains is by ensuring robust participation of small businesses through government procurement.
Recent trends, however, threaten to undermine small businesses’ role in buttressing supply chain resilience. In our past work as, respectively, Administrator of the Small Business Administration and Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, we found the procurement process to always be a mighty challenge for small businesses. That is in spite of concerted effort on the part of many in government to widen contracting opportunities for small business. The Biden administration, in its American Jobs Plan and proposed budget outline, has made clear that expanding the role of small businesses in procurement is a priority. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill share this view.
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