The back story here is an obnoxious email that a PR flack at the Small Business Administration sent me.

In, like, 53-point italics, it said I should “call to interview the award winners and discuss the event.” I didn’t know what the event was – the subject line of the email was: “SBA Press Release:” – and the flack obviously didn’t know that I’m not a reporter.

Mission accomplished . . . sorta.

I read the release, and will now tell you why the budgets of the Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce should be cut.

National Minority Business Development Enterprise Week was last week. It’s a project of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development. “MED Week” is “an annual celebration in recognition of the contributions made by minority businesses to the Nation’s economy.”

Do minority business contribute to the nation’s economy? They certainly do. Are minority businesspeople worthy of our appreciation and respect? They certainly are. Should they get an annual celebration paid for with Americans’ tax dollars? Absolutely not.

Government programs almost always grow beyond their original purposes. And this is true even of programs with entirely legitimate original purposes. Whatever help is or was appropriate for minority businessespeople, throwing them an annual party is not part of that.

Racial and ethnic issues are sensitive, and it’s easy to be misunderstood, so let’s be clear again: Minority businesspeople are terrific people – just like all businesspeople. Anyone who consciously or unconsciously makes business decisions based on race or ethnicity is wrong to do so – and people who do that deprive themselves of good business relationships.

But I’d rather see businesspeople and consumers of all backgrounds get their tax money back than see their dollars used to support parties and celebrations that reinforce divisions in our society along racial and ethnic lines.

The Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration are funded annually through the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. (link to the Senate version – a month before the new fiscal year, the House bill still hasn’t been introduced) Here’s the current vote on the bill. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.