Home Depot stops doing business with federal government (even cash!)

Saint Louis Today ^ | June 16, 2002

[John Jorsett]

Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives.

The Post-Dispatch checked with managers at 38 stores in 11 states. All but two said they had received instructions from Home Depot's corporate headquarters this month not to take government credit cards, purchase orders or even cash if the items are being used by the federal government.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Before giving us a purchase order, they sent me a 16-page "qualification" form to fill out - all kinds of bureaucratic gibberish and PC nonsense....

That is a weird way to do business. If these guys sent me a 16-page form to fill out, I'd tell them the same thing: "The only paperwork I want to see from you is a check or purchase order."

[Dales]

I don't know what other facts there are beyond those in the article, so I could change my opinion. But my first reaction is...

Good for Home Depot.

They are precisely right. The government does (thanks to liberal judges and Democrat-ally trial lawyers) expand their control scope in just this manner. And the government is hoping that the soldiers and such who are declined service at Home Depot will cause a sympathetic backlash that forces Home Depot's hand.

I honor and support our troops. Thank you for your service. But kudos to Home Depot for knowing the nature of the leftist expansion.

[Anotherpundit]

I don't have a particular problem with all this, beyond thinking that it's nice to see *someone* standing up to the feds.

[Dales]

The problem is... the government then can use that as a reason to claim that they can regulate the hiring practices and other aspects of the Home Depot company. "Anyone receiving government funds must comply...". Sound loopy? Tell me you don't know that some leftist judge wouldn't just love to expand the government reach that way.

Sounds to me like if the government puts in writing that the sales would not cause Home Depot to fall under the auspices of those laws and orders, that they would be more than happy to do business with out servicemen.

I am with Home Depot on this.

[inkling]

I get really tired of this 'We're at war' crap. It worked when Osama bin Laden was alive. But now the war is against everyone Muslim, and it's going to last forever, and oh by the way, the FBI needs to read all your e-mail now, even though there's irrefutable evidence that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented if it had merely bothered to read its own e-mail.

Wow, Cynthia McKinney is now a Freeper! Good to see that the war is over. Radical Islamists are no longer trying to kill Americans at home and abroad... they now just want to give us all candy and a bug hug! Whew, that takes a load off. Guess we can all just go back to pretending 9-11 never happened.

Thanks Cynthia!

[El Gato]

Choosing not to sell to a government agency (or any or all of them) is in no wise either illegal or unpatriotic. Its called FREEDOM,

While it is an expression of Freedom, and they are able to not deal with the government, I would say that under the conditions indicated, it is unpatriotic. They can't be complaining about government paperwork, there is none for cash purchases. I don't know what their reason for not dealing with the government, especially the military, is, but absent a better explanation than that given in the article, I would call it unpatriotic. If that supply sergent had to go farther or spend more of your money to satisfy his unit's needs, then that's just that much less they can do to accomplish their mission, under fixed limits of money and personnel.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

When I was getting out of the Navy in late 1994, we had a hard time getting certain repair parts because several companies that sold to us decided to stop doing business with the government. They said that all the paperwork and hassle factor just wasn't worth the money that they were getting from selling them the repair parts.

When you do business with the government, you have to fill out a huge paperwork package for the privilege of having them buy from you. Then you're subject to all kinds of audits and have to file and track mountains of paperwork because every single purchase has a paperwork package involved.

More and more companies are deciding that the mountains of paperwork, intrusive audits, and being treated like a criminal if you get dinged on an audit just isn't worth the money. Good, maybe the government will scale back their paperwork and bureacracy if companies stop doing business with them.

When you go to the grocery store, you don't make the cashier review and sign a 16-page stack of paperwork. The government shouldn't make that demand on businesses, either.

[inkling]

READING COMPREHENSION ALERT!!!!! The article says NOTHING about refusing service to "uniformed military personnel". It says it will refuse PURCHASES BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, which is a whole 'nother thing. I am sure that if the guy in uniform was buying something for his/her own use, Home Depot would happily sell it to him/her.

If a 19-year-old boatswain's mate needs to run to Home Depot for a couple extra gallons of haze gray paint, I don't think he should be denied service. And until they're willing to treat our military at least as well as they treat any other customer, they don't need the business of this ex-Navy man. It's called the free market... I can shop where the military isn't rejected.

According to the article uniformed personnel can't even purchase items in cash. So much for letting them buy things for personal use. I'm all for limited government, but when hatred of the Feds spreads to contempt for the military, I'm not going to play along.

[Sonny M]

This story left out a lot of details. I have to shop at home depot quite often for our business and have grown to know the management there. They were given reasons on why they are not supposed to sell to government people after they made repeated calls to corporate headquaters and spoke to some of the management there. The Government was doing large amounts of business with them, and was assuming regulatory powers of them. Even though Home Depot never signed the proper paperwork, by accepting money from the government for government use, they left themselves vulnerable to types of "Good Citizen in Standing" rules that those who do business with the government must follow, on contracts and bids, etc. They are currently involved in a lawsuit in which the government is using, as part of its claim, that Home Depot violated some of the regs that busines's who work with or do business with the government must follow. Despite there having been no written and signed agreement. This left Home Depot open to a lot of government rules and regs that would not normally apply. Long story short, they would have run themselves as if they were a government agency or risk sanctions or exposed liability. It is NOT A DON'T ASK DON'T TELL POLICY. Employees many not sell if they reasonably believe that the product is for government use, this only applies to the Federal government, not state or local. The lawyers at home depot are drafting up procedures, and will eventually seek to engage the lawyers at either GAO or the Justice department, if something satisfactory is not worked out, then Home Depot will contine to discriminate against any and all federal agencies. By the way, Home Depot is not the only company who refuses to do business with the government, there are supposedly several others.

[nygoose]

Don't worry, I'll pick up the slack.

[SSN558]

I don't do as much business with Homo Depot anymore since they had the little give a Homo a life program, but they are still are a convenient source of home improvemnet and repair items.

I wouldn't hold a company as anti American or anything that refused to do business with the U.S. government. There are plenty of other valid reasons such as:

The federal government always takes a long time to pay. It can be up to six months after you deliver the product before they send the check. Unless you are selling special designed $600 dollar hammers it hurts your cash flow.

Paper work reporting requirements are costly. I know more than one business that folded after they failed to read and understand all the fine print in the contract. The feds will withhold payment until you comply with all the paper submittals and they can be complex. If you think your income tax return is burdensome, then try adminstering a federal contract. When I used to propose defense contracts we always added the blurb, "to comply with FAR and DAR" in the proposal to justify costs. The Federal Aquistion Regulations and Defense Aquisition Regulations contain thousands of pages and dozens of volumes that in turn reference other government regulations and specifications.

No Joke. The old specification for fruit cake used to get faxed around for laughs. It was 26 pages long and had required dimensions for the dried fruit particles.

When I used to farm out, "out source" defense contract items I was always careful to warn new vendors. "Your books have to be clean and well documented. All it takes is for one bad audit and you could loose everything you've worked for." The profits are there, but you have to play the game by their rules or you loose.

[meyer]

I just stopped doing business with Home Depot.

I just started.

[SarahW]

So totally true. There is a Home Depot near me. I drive right past it on my way to Lowes. Everytime (and I mean absolutely,literally, every single time) I have stopped as HD for the sake of convenience, they were out of stock or just plain didn't stock what I needed. I hate Home Depot.

[dinodino]

I don't believe the intent is to discriminate against servicemen. No doubt there's some onerous regs that HD are trying to avoid.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I kind of wonder if Home Depot just issued a blanket statement because they didn't really know how the system works. If a guy who works for the government shows up with an IMPAC credit card to buy some stuff for the local military base, you just scan the card, have the guy sign the reciept, and he's on his way with the stuff. As for cash purchases, I don't think the govt. even does that anymore. They make everybody use direct deposit and material is only purchased with purchase orders or credit cards because they have minimized cutting checks and disbursing cash, at least as much as possible.

The real paperwork and audit hassle comes when you want to be a GSA-approved contractor so that you can sell them large volumes and/or high-dollar stuff. I'm guessing that the big boys at Home Depot didn't know this and just issued a blanket policy, or maybe the govt. did something to really piss them off. Who knows?

[texson66]

Hank, IF ONLY OTHER ciompanies would do the same!!!

[Dark Wing]

That sounds about right.

[Banjoguy]

I own Home Depot..just like I am the NRA!

[Always A Marine]

The Home Depot policy may be discriminatory, since they are refusing to sell to individuals based on their affiliation to the government.
If you read the article again, you will notice that HD's ban does not affect sales to any individuals, period. It prohibits sales to the federal government of items to be used by the federal government. That's not discrimination against any individual.

Military commanders are required by law to place all establishments that discriminate against their personnel off-limits.
Again, not one of us has been discriminated against, and we'll continue to shop at whichever stores best serve our needs. For me, that's Home Depot. As real men know, Lowe's is for ladies.

I'm going to... guess based on more than 20 years of military service that many members of the military will voluntarily boycott the company when they learn of this policy.
Those of us with more than 20 years of military service know who onerous and threatening it is to deal with federal bureaucracy. When more of us learn of Home Depot's common-sense new policy, more of us will shop at Home Depot.

We support our own.
"Our own" does not include chicken-crap bureaucrats who force private enterprise to run its businesses into the ground. This Marine was at Home Depot yesterday, and will be back again this week -- happier than ever!

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I avoid the local Home Depot for the same reasons that you have listed, and also because the people there are rude and treat you like a nuisance when you want to ask them something. Lowes is a lot better.