There is a significant portion of the population of the United States of America that assumes they are entitled to have those who serve in our military sacrifice their lives and incur disability for their security and prosperity. They view active duty and service men and women and veterans as servants who are expected to serve their peace and tranquility in a prosperous nation. These people do not understand, consider or accept any obligation to those who sacrificed so much for those benefits.

Many of these people belong to special interest groups that continue to sabotage and subvert the current efforts of vetrepreneurs to secure equal participation in the special procurement programs of federal, state and local governments.

The present leadership of the various veteran entrepreneurship organizations must respond to the deliberate actions by members of the U.S. House of representatives that recently rejected the inclusion of veterans and disabled veterans in the appropriations regulations of the Department of Defense.

That special interest group instigation is a symbolic example of similar policies and practices that are being perpetrated by administration officials throughout the federal government at the behest of these special interests. These veteran-owned business exclusion practices are continuously ignored or dismissed by legislators and administration officials intimidated by special interest group threats. Sadly, these policies are being rapidly adopted by the private sector prime contractors as “realistic practices” that are to be adopted in conformity with government’s “silent compliance.”

Veterans must demand full participation in government procurement practices by insisting that discriminatory language that instructs contracting officers that they “may” provide special consideration, at their discretion, to veteran-owned businesses is eliminated. Presently, the language that reads special interest groups “shall” receive such special assistance is outrageous discrimination that vetrepreneurs have been challenging for the past five years.

It is to the credit of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship that fully supported this change in language was shocked and dismayed that a member of the House of Representatives in the Defense Appropriations conference aggressively and deliberately struck out any reference to veteran-owned business inclusion in government procurement.

This action was a symptomatic example of the clandestine efforts by the anti-veteran special interest groups to deny full and equal participation by veterans in the economic system they sacrificed to protect and maintain. This discrimination is a challenge vetrepreneurs must answer or stand by as their opportunities disappear.

John K. Lopez is the pioneer of the veteran entrepreneurship movement and NaVOBA’s director of policy.

Comments