Tag unconstitutional

Wow, another bombshell dropped us on by Congress! The clause that Small Businesses in Defense (and other) areas for a guaranteed budget allocation has been squelched.

This previous instance set some serious precedence with no end in sight.

(re: “Preferential Treatment” for minorities called unconstitutional a court has ruled)

So, fresh from the halls of Congress is this little gem:

“Small business program declared unconstitutional”

As Nick Wakeman has had to say,

I think this story is just beginning. Small business advocates will likely be on Capitol Hill explaining ways that Congress can address the court’s ruling. Some will argue that many socio-economic groups still are discriminated against. Another argument is that small business programs foster economic growth.

We definitely need that now.

Perhaps this will drive innovation in these smaller businesses in order to be more agile, nimble and able to take those monies from big business.   But without any major reform in addition to these new lines of ‘reform’ initiated from Congress and declaring things “unconstitutional” we’ll be stuck with more of the same, Big Business Wins, small businesses collapse and Monopolies all around!    The question is, who will be the Thimble and who will be the Car.

Good luck out there small businesses. It’s definitely an uphill battle from here.

These two articles came across my desk this morning:

In the News: DOD loses minority contractor rule

Court strikes down DOD’s minority contractor rule

Basically put, this was a law put in place calling for minority-owned companies to receive 5% of Defense contracting dollars.

What did Congress have to say on this issue?

The court ruled that since Congress did not have strong enough evidence of discrimination against minority contractors by the Defense Department, the law violates the Constitution’s equal rights protection.

Or to quote:

“Because Congress did not have a ‘strong basis in evidence’ upon which to conclude that DOD was a passive participant in pervasive, nationwide racial discrimination … the statute fails strict scrutiny,” Chief Judge Paul R. Michel wrote in Tuesday’s decision.

So, what does this mean for the future?

Technically on paper this means that all qualified defense contractors will be able to put up for bid to compete on projects – and then the “Lowest Price” effectively will win every time.

This will certainly raise the chances that not only will smaller defense contractors find it harder to compete with “WalMart” sized defense contractors, but we’ll see the already shrinking budgets being delivered to an even smaller minority of majority contractors.

Only time will tell whether the court ruling on its ‘lack of evidence’ will continue to be so apparent.