Feds' minority contracts in peril

My San Antonio ^ | 03/01/2009 12:00 CST | David Hendricks

[houeto]

All aspects of federal contracting programs favoring minority-owned businesses have been turned upside down by an injunction issued by a judge in San Antonio.

[GOPsterinMA]

Yep - I know of one company that does it as well. My friend has his mother as the “owner”. of the company.

[Islander7]

allows them to win procurement contracts from all federal agencies on a preferential basis, often without facing competitive bids.”...

What was it we heard ad nauseum from MSM about no bid contracts for the Iraq Battle?

Seems these gimme programs are just fine for a certain subset of citizens, but not for others. No surprise here.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Very good. However, with a wave of the wand “The Divine One” shall ensure that minority firms are given the right of first refusal on all bids for governmental work. (See Reich)

[ravingnutter]

Thanks for posting the thread...I’ve been too busy most of the time lately to do anything other than quick responses while I am waiting on my printer, LOL! I sure hope this opens up some opportunities for our company, we do RDT&E for the USAF and pickings have been mighty slim lately since our area was hit by BRAC.

[ronnie raygun]

Heard today Obama is going to review and make necessary changes on the way federal contracts are awarded. Here comes Rieches, white skilled construction workers need not apply. Watch with no surprize or amazement

[ravingnutter]

As I posted on another thread:

There is no such thing as a DoD no-bid contract over the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) of $25,000. By law, all proposed acquisitions that exceed the threshold are to be published on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website for public review, comment and bidding opportunity.

There are sole source contracts, which were originally published for competitive bid as required by law and the subsequent market research proved there is no other qualified supplier for that particular item or service. There are follow on contracts for production, sometimes also classified as sole source, for items that were originally prototyped under RDT&E by a particular company under a competitive bid contract.

Bottom line...ALL contracts in excess of the SAT were originally awarded under a competitive bidding process. What comes of that process determines how that contract is handled in the future.

What really hacks me off is when the left spouts off about Halliburton getting no bid contracts when they competitively bid with several other companies on the LOGCAP procurement in 2001. LOGCAP was a multi-year ID/IQ supercontract under which task orders were issued for emergency services. These task orders are what they are referring to as "no bid" and that is just flat out a false statement. More info:

Halliburton: The Bush/Iraq Scandal that Wasn’t

[SeaHawkFan]

The U.S. District Court in San Antonio three times ruled against Rothe Development, but each time the district court ruling was overturned by the federal appeals court in Washington.

The appeals court said the discrimination statistical data used by Congress to justify minority contracting was insufficient. On Nov. 4, it ordered Rodriguez to issue a final judgment and injunction.

Looks like the Federal Court of Appeals was fed up with the US District Court Judge.

[FreepShop1]

Yep - I know of one company that does it as well. My friend has his mother as the “owner”. of the company.

What's to stop a white guy say he is an African-American? I mean Eric Holder looks a lot more white than some of my relatives. Is there a process to "verify blackness"?

[Buckeye McFrog]

hooray for the Hispanic judge who did not give in to race baiting!

[Doctor Raoul]

Bottom line...ALL contracts in excess of the SAT were originally awarded under a competitive bidding process.

There are exemptions from competition, even on the first award.

Urgency, secrecy are two reasons.

[Danae]

Who would have thunk that the Government was acting unconstitutionally? /sarc

[whatshotandwhatsnot]

My own V.A. story - I had to get bids for window cleaning at my hospital. Because of the cost and simple nature of the job I couldn’t justify getting a particular firm with a very good reputation to do the job. The job went to the lowest bidder who showed up for work without ladders or any supplies which we had to furnish. True story.

[ichabod1]

It’s not about minor-ityes, it’s about being in a group that was formerly abused by SLAVERY~!

[Frantzie]

Maybe we should file a BC case about the Kenyan-born marxist and hope this judge gets the case. Maybe there are a few honest judges left.

[ichabod1]

No there is not. I don’t think Holder could “pass.” Pretty close, but no cigar. If you have the nads to claim blackness, more power to you, but I’ve always chickened out.

[ravingnutter]

That is the reason ID/IQ “supercontracts” such as LOGCAP were designed, as a kind of umbrella under which task orders for different projects can be issued in that company's area of expertise...but those were all competitively bid to begin with. LOGCAP, in fact, was designed to cover "emergencies" such as natural disasters and terrorism. I know, I have worked under one of those types of contracts for the last 23 years (RDT&E), although we have to rebid every 5 years on ours. All award decisions are still based on market research and justification for any sole source procurement over $25,000 is scrutinized very carefully. Believe me, DCAA Auditors are very thorough, you don't want to get cross-ways with one.

[topfile]

Good News!

"Not so fast" Robert Reich says.

Video Robert Reich on Obamas job stimulus plan hiring

[blam]

The government has a policy to discriminate against White people:

No White Male Construction Workers

[bill1952]

perfect.

[GOPsterinMA]

That’s a great point!

I guess DNA testing could be done to determine a person’s ethnicity.