Small businesses utilize the services of the Small Business Administration

If you and your small business utilize the services of the Small Business Administration, then you will want to follow President Obama’s budget proposals. The President’s 2012 budget proposal asks for $985 million for the SBA, a 45% reduction from last year’s budget, reports The Wall Street Journal.

It’s not all bad news for business owners, though. Some of the savings, an estimated $20 million in fact, should come from the SBA’s efforts to streamline loan applications, re-engineering certification processes and generally making loan-management and accounting systems more efficient.

It should be said, too, that the 45% reduction is not so much a cut as the repeal of some of the spending authorized by the Recovery Act and the Small Business Jobs Act, which gave the SBA a budget bump of $963 million. Had those supplemental appropriations not existed, the proposed 2012 SBA budget would actually be 20% more instead of 45% less than 2010.

While the cuts will eliminate some useful programs and will cut support for Small Business Development Centers, streamlining the loan application process would be a welcome relief for business owners and bank lenders alike.