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keeping company (image: buckshotjones/flickr)
Before the holidays are over, the Obama administration will most likely eliminate the nation’s oldest and most successful program for directing federal infrastructure spending to minorities.
By abolishing this program, which was established by the Civil Rights act to require that five percent of federal infrastructure spending be with minority-owned small businesses, the Obama administration will cost minority-owned small businesses between $25 billion and $50 billion in losses each year.
The elimination of this program will no doubt increase the unemployment rate for minorities around the country and potentially force thousands of minority-owned companies from coast to coast to close their doors.
But unless you’ve been reading my blog or following the efforts of the American Small Business League, you probably had no idea this was happening because the government always tries to keep negative news out of the press.
For almost two decades I’ve watched federal agencies adopt policies and procedures that result in the gradual dismantling of federal programs for small businesses. Most of these policy changes are in clear violation of the Small Business Act of 1953, which mandates that 23 percent of all federal contracts must go to small businesses. Traditionally you’ll see the Whitehouse and federal agencies bury these anti-small business policy announcements in the Federal Register at times when reporters are less likely to see it, like the busy holiday season.
This seems to continue under Democrats or Republicans, most likely due to the avalanche of lobbying dollars spent by the defense and aerospace industries to acquire the majority of all federal contracts awarded each year.
On September 9, 2011, President Obama announced his administration’s initial proposal to dismantle this federal contracting program for minority-owned small businesses in as quiet a manner as possible— a densely worded, vague notice published in the Federal Register on a late Friday afternoon, while the mainstream press was in a frenzy over the ten year anniversary of 9/11 looming just two days away.
I am predicting that the Obama administration will now announce its final decision to eliminate the federal minority-owned small business spending program over the holidays— it goes without saying that the nation’s first African-American president doesn’t want to admit that he is dismantling the best federal program for minority job creation this country has ever seen.
By abolishing this program, which was established in the Civil Rights Act through the legendary activism of Martin Luther King Jr. to require that five percent of federal infrastructure spending be with minority-owned small businesses, the Obama administration will cost minority-owned small businesses between $25 billion and $50 billion in losses each year.
22 Comments
This will also go a long way to demolish minority support next year… and thusly will lose even more votes.
I’m seriously doubting he even wants to be re-elected.
I always thought the military was the most successful minority job creation program in U.S. history. But all joking aside…
That this is neither shocking nor reported by the MSM will prove the real legacy of the Barack Obama regime. Its propagandists have succeeded at every turn in convincing overwhelming numbers of minority voters that anything less than a second term for our first black president would negate the chances of another person of color becoming president any time soon. To the point that they’ll sit quietly by, even while said president trashes the landmark program that has proved to be such a game-changer for so many.
Just… breathtaking.
Tweeted, liked, and recommended BTW.
There goes that “lesser” of two evils again!
Thank you Anthony Noel…..well I was just thinking the same thing as regards to the propaganda….my friend was giving me a ride,he had Thom Harhmann on the radio…..And it is so blatanly obvious that Harthmann is no progressive,here is a guy who claims to be a progressive but instead of supporting & giving progressive voices plug on his radio program,Harthmann is urging listeners to vote for Obama,a Corporatist cuz won’t you know,a Corporatist Prez is magically going to appoint a progressive to the Supreme Court.
How long are we going to accept these wolves in sheep clothing,this Harthmann & the likes of him should not be invited anywhere near progressive gatherings,these people are traitors to the cause.
Look, I have said it before ,Obama would do away with the civil Rights Act of 1964 ,if he would be referred to as the best Prez in American history By the Media.
Thanks Lloyd. I’ll have to pass this along. It just never stops.
Obama is simply reaching out to angry white Republican voters with this move, hoping he can peel off 1 or 2 Republican votes while losing 30,000 Democratic ones.
I agree. I don’t think he does want to be re-elected. He should just drop out of the race.
Hartmann is good for some historical and constitutional things but yeah, he is nothing but a dem party hack!
He’d get rid of the voting rights act as well.
The elephant in the room is that those 30K lost votes will NOT be minority ones. Nobody is “comfortable” talking about, but outside the Black Agenda Report, very few in the A-A community will ultimately break ranks with this president, despite his blatant disregard (at best) and (at worst) downright regressive policies toward the minority communities.
Today, December 27 2011, the media is all agog over some former aide’s “revelations” of Ron Paul’s beliefs – beliefs everybody paying attention knows about already, and not very controversial ones at that, while his outright discriminatory congressional intiatives continue to go unreported.
The MSM is plotting – and will get – the Obama-Romney “showdown” (*hack* *cough* *gag*) it wants, because that way, it doesn’t matter who wins, not in terms of the corporatists’ ability to keep consolidating their oppressive grip on the wages, living standards, and opportunities afforded the 99 percent.
Democracy, my ass.
Summed up nicely, Anthony.
“few in the A-A community will ultimately break ranks”
Refresh my memory, please: what’s it called when you make decisions based on the color of a person’s skin rather than the content of their character?
Thought for the day.
Stop complaining about the long list of betrayals. Start organizing his opposition. For me, that means working on the Rocky Anderson for president campaign.
When will it be OK to note that BO is only *half* black?
Too late for that. Wanda Sykes jokingly said when he was inaugurated that if he fucks up he’s half white. If he does well he’s half black! :)
Agree. The Obama/Romney “showdown” is in. The MSM is already drawing up their narratives for 2012.
Everytime there’s an anti-Rommney candidate, the GOP hierarchy and their friends in the MSM knock them down. Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrinch, and now Ron Paul all getting slapped down by the PTB.
Even the folks at redstate know that Romney is being forced down their throats.
sigh – nope – today with Obama the “r” word only refers to those that point out the Obama calls for “group loyalty”. He will score at least 90% of the black vote despite his not helping that community.
Meanwhile on the topic at hand – small business and minority business preferences that have been lost in government contracting, I can only support the poster since I was told to my face that I needed to use a larger company as the ultimate sellers as I was not allow to be directly in that food chain, despite meeting the rules for such preferred status.
Indeed the preferred status in both programs were lost in the 80′s under Reagan when Reagan’s staff went out and told folks how to get a company “owned” front man that was a minority, or a company “owned” reseller that was a “small business”, so as to get in front of real small businesses and minority businesses. We have had periodic “scandals” as such fronts are exposed but these were folks tossed to the media to prove the programs continued – even when they were being choked to death by non-enforcement of the law – as the stats on the results of the programs were inflated by the large company fronts.
Obama will be the first to toss the pretend and just lock in his love of the large corporate/large money folks by formally killing the programs. Given today’s security risks from buying computer brains – the CPU chips/controller chips – from plants in China, the nonsense about how hard it is to verify security in small/minority operations is just not cutting it these days as an excuse for the programs not working, I guess, so why pretend?
Yep, looks like everything is on schedule to finish off any hope of the shrinking middle class.
I respect the sentiment, but I think it’s too late for that. Electing a progressive to the House, the Senate, or the White House is going to accomplish little as long as he can be marginalized. As long as the two factions of the One Party control the way politicians are elected, such marginalization will be the de facto state of affairs (cf: Bernie Sanders).
To me “organizing an opposition” is more about organizing an opposition to the current method of electing politicians and less about opposing individuals who happen to be politicians, elected or otherwise. This includes campaign finance reform, electoral reform, etc. And I’m honestly not sure even that will be enough. I think something less benevolent is ultimately going to have to happen. I just hope that I’m wrong or, failing that, that it’s at least not as bad as it has been in the past and that it’s not an enduring period of such unrest
not surprising, is this?
since the arrival of the europeans, there was a period of about thirty years, when the situation of the average (non native or minority) person improved, in North America.
That thirty years, only happened, I think the upper crust were afraid of the well armed, well trained, war hardened returning ww two veterans;
He may already know that he’s re-elected.