Small Business Contracts?????

Article excerpts taken from the Columbus Dispatch,

"The House Democrats’ report, however, said the administration’s tally of small business contracts in 2005 included some of the world’s largest companies:


• Microsoft Corp. won eight smallbusiness contracts worth $1.5 million. Five contracts, worth $475,000, came from the Pentagon. The others came from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons.


• Rolls-Royce plc received $2.2 million in 63 contract actions. The bulk came from the Navy, which spent $2 million on 53 Rolls contracts.


• Wal-Mart, whose 1.5 million workers make it the nation’s largest private employer, received three small-business contracts totaling $14,232 from the Department of the Army.


• Exxon Mobil Corp., with $370 billion in annual revenue in 2005, won a $63,855 contract from the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency and a $50,000 award from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service.


• Google Inc. won separate contracts from the U.S. Coast Guard ($41,800), the Peace Corps ($15,000) and the Federal Highway Administration ($2,995).

Tom Greer, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, said it’s a common problem. The aeronautics company has 135,000 employees and reported $37 billion in sales last year. The House panel, however, found that government agencies classified $8 million in Lockheed contracts as small-business awards. Greer said the company has often had to ask federal agencies to correct records showing Lockheed as a small business."