Legislation designed to encourage state government agencies to purchase goods and services from veteran-owned businesses and set a goal of awarding at least 10 percent of construction business to VOBs bidding on North Carolina state contracts has stalled, according to the Fayetteville Observer.

Legislators said further inquiry is needed and the bill will flounder until the legislature reconvenes in 2011. The bill, House Bill 912, passed the N.C. House of Representatives unanimously in May 2009 and has floundered in the Senate Commerce Committee for more than a year.

State Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr. was quoted as saying "I think the questions were, in establishing this kind of preference, there are other categories that we already provide some type of preference for... who do you give advantage to?"

This is the same type of argument that creeps up around the country dealing with this type of legislation. Other diverse groups claim that veteran-owned businesses are taking a slice of their pie. There’s an easy solution to that false logic. Cut a new slice!

Another argument stems from the fact that many of these laws were passed in response to discrimination against minority- and women-owned businesses. Opponents of inclusion of VOBs insist that veterans were not discriminated against. Ask any Vietnam veteran about their return home in the 1960s and 1970s. They may have a dissenting opinion.

In either case, if the state is going to offer an advantage to anybody, at least include service-disabled veterans. These brave Americans have earned it. Plus, the government doesn’t make a person a minority or a woman, but it does create veterans.

To learn more about this bill click here.     

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