Small Business Administration - SBA

Categories: Econ, Regulations

Rudy. The Mighty Ducks. Rocky. Everybody loves a good underdog story.

In the business world, that means mom-n-pop shops surviving against the big boys...larger businesses, as well as national and international corporations. That’s why the U.S. has the SBA: the Small Business Administration.

The Small Business Administration is a U.S. agency that provides support to small businesses and folks with an entrepreneurial streak. This support comes mostly in the form of financing. The big mainstay of the SBA is the partially government-backed loans to make borrowing easier, and helping small business recover when times are tough. More periphery services include business and legal counseling. There are also finance and development programs aimed specifically at helping veterans and women start their own businesses.

Funnily enough, the SBA is an underdog story in itself. It was born in the 1950s, but was almost cast into oblivion by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in 1996, and again during the Bush administration.

For now, it lives on, fighting the fight of the bootstrapping entrepreneur.



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