8 still dodging bullets

Black Enterprise, Dec, 1996 by Joyce Jones

It was her latest effort to torpedo minority business. Just hours before the August congressional recess, Rep. Jan Meyers (R-Kansas) quietly introduced a bill that would effectively eliminate the SBA's 8(a) program. As the retiring chair of the House Small Business Committee, she planned this last-minute legislation as her swan song, or so it would appear.

With the Dole-Canady bill (which proposes to outlaw race and sex-based remedies in hiring and federal contract awards fading into the background for now, Meyers has apparently decided to go guns blazing after minority contracting and procurement. She has introduced H.R. 3994, the Entrepreneur Development Program Act of 1996. A radical alternative to 8(a) - which accounts for more than half of all minority participation in federal procurement - Meyers' bill would provide opportunities for anyone with a net worth of $250,000 or less, regardless of whether the company is minority-owned.

"When you get into economic empowerment and business issues, you're hitting at the heart of the American system," says Rep. Al Wynn (D-Maryland). "That's why she's taking the thing that is most useful to minorities today, which is access to government contracts.

As the 104th Congress' final legislative session drew to a close, Meyers called a hearing on the bill, assembling a chorus of witnesses to back up her allegations a "rich get richer program for Beltway Bandits." Meyers has said on many occasions that she believes 8(a) is a "program of corporate welfare in its worst form." That depiction has left many on the Hill fuming. "She's distorted the facts and I don't think she really understands 8(a)," says Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California).

Weldon Latham, a Washington attorney who represents minority contractors, agrees. He says the bill demonstrates Meyers' lack of knowledge about business, and her desire to relegate companies that participate in the program to mom-and-pop stores. "She tends to hold minority companies to a much higher standard than she holds small businesses, not withstanding the discrimination they have to deal with," he says.

Despite Meyers' attempts to silence the minority, all of the Democratic committee members attended the hearing. And, for perhaps the first time, concerned entrepreneurs were lined up outside the door because the room was full. Apparently the hearing struck a dissonant note with Meyers' Republican colleagues. Few of them bothered to attend, preferring to keep the appearance of harmony with the voters.

They may change their tune after the elections, however, depending on which way the political wind is blowing by early next year. If the Republicans do indeed retain control of both the House and Senate, then this bill could easily rear its ugly head again and wipe out what had been a lucrative inroad for minority businesses.

Time spent on bills to eliminate 8(a) means less effort on mending it. Fixing the program, most everyone agrees, would be the better of the two alternatives.