The Bailout Plan: Anti-Small Business?
As Congress, and everyone else, debates the bailout plan, one of the key considerations is just how much unchecked power it signs over to Hank Paulson, as I briefly mentioned in my post last week. There's another executive power issue that has not been widely reported. From Government Executive:
What attracted far less notice in the bill was a set of provisions that would have given Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson virtually unfettered authority to set up and run the new organization designed to stabilize the financial system—bypassing federal acquisition rules and competitive hiring procedures in the process.
Apparently there was language hidden in the bill that was rejected by the House on Monday that would have allowed Paulson to waive at will the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Among other things, FAR regulates how the federal government hires contractors and provides rules for chosing them through an open and competitive process.
This language could easily remain in the bill that the House will consider this week.
It's not entirely clear exactly why the Treasury Department would need to hire contractors to implement the bailout. Then again, almost none of the details of how the bailout would work in practice have been formulated, so that is to be expected.
The American Small Business League issued a news release claiming that waiving federal acquisition regulations would endanger the number of contracts going to small businesses. ASBL President Lloyd Chapman says that "it is clearly not necessary to suspend federal acquisition law to bail out Wall Street and the financial industry."
I admit that much of this sounds conspiratorial, and the explanation could be innocuous. So, why was this language included in the bill?
Tags: small business | Henry Paulson
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Reader Comments
to d in CA
you can buy my home it is empty now. foreclosure. you would love it. I did. Now I am old, alone and penniless, with a small business that you can buy as well. your wish has come true. the value of my home is half what it should be so you can afford it now. you obviously are a simple minded jerk.
bailout
Irresponsible? I am not an careless business person. I am 58, female and just last week moved from my home of 17 years due to foreclosure. I purchased a convenience store and deli 5 years ago and it has failed miserablly and now I may possibly loose it as well. I am homeless and sleeping in my store and struggling on a daily basis to keep the doors open for my community. I have worked every day for 40 years,and never missed paying the IRS and used my 401K as a downpayment on my store in a rural tourist community in Virgina. I am totally broke and unable to sell my business to pay off other debts. I agree that there are some folks that may have been irresponsible but I am NOT one of them. I was never late on any payment in my life until this year. EVER. I had to sell all my personal belonging and everything I was able to keep is in a 10 x 10 storage unit. You are obviously a simple minded jackass with no concept of how the rest of us are suffering. Recession? Bull crap.........DEPRESSION is what it is called and I have been feeling it for several years and am not surprised that the rest of the country is now experiencing it. My credit is ruined and there are no lending institutions that will even consider helping me now. So, maybe you can help me since you seem to have it all figured out.
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