In 1990 Congress allowed the Pentagon to adopt the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program (CSPTP). The CSPTP’s current website states, “The purpose of the test is to determine whether comprehensive subcontracting plans will result in increased subcontracting opportunities for small businesses while reducing the administrative burden on contractors.”
The CSPTP was adopted under the guise of increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses. In reality, its true goal was to create a gigantic loophole in federal contracting law that has allowed Pentagon prime contractors to cheat American small businesses out of hundreds of billions in subcontract dollars for 25 years.
Before the CSPTP began, Pentagon prime contractors were required to submit small business subcontracting plans and small business subcontracting reports on every major contract. This data was available to the public and could be used to track a prime contractors compliance with their small business subcontracting goals. The CSPTP eliminated all publicly available information and all transparency on a prime contractor’s compliance with small business goals.
Prior to the CSPTP, prime contractors could face “liquidated damages” for failure to comply with federal law establishing small business subcontracting goals. The CSPTP exempted participating prime contractors from “liquidated damages” or any other penalties for refusing to follow the law mandating small business goals.
Under the pretense of “increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses”, the CSPTP has dramatically reduced opportunities for small businesses by eliminating all transparency and all penalties for prime contractors that failed to comply with small business subcontracting goals.
The Pentagon claims they have been testing the CSPTP for 25 years and both the House and the Senate are poised to renew the program into 2017, which will mark the program’s 28th year of testing.
Over the last 25 years, the Pentagon has consistently refused to release any data of any kind on the CSPTP and certainly no data to indicate it has achieved its stated goal of increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses. The Pentagon is even refusing to release any specific subcontracting data under the Freedom of Information Act that has been submitted under the CSPTP. Gee, I wonder why?
Based on all the data I have been able to obtain under the Freedom of Information Act, it appears small businesses have been defrauded out of somewhere between one and one point five trillion dollars in federal subcontracts over the past 25 years the CSPTP has been in place.
It does appear that both the House and Senate have enough integrity to be embarrassed by their continued approval of the 25-year-old untested Pentagon test program.
In the House version of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Bill, section 811 which contains the language renewing the controversial “Test Program” into its 28th year of testing has been hidden under the title, “Subtitle B—Industrial Base Matters”.
The desire by the House of Representatives to hide section 811 maybe based on the language in the “Chairman’s Mark” of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Bill. It states, "However, after nearly 24 years since the original authorization of the program, the test program has yet to provide evidence that it meets the original stated goal of the program..."
A 2004 GAO investigation into the CSPTP agreed with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon and stated, “Although the Test Program was started more than 12 years ago, DOD has yet to establish metrics to evaluate the program’s results and effectiveness.”
In the Senate version of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Bill, the language in Section 823 renewing the CSPTP until 2017 seems ambiguous at best and clearly gives the Pentagon complete and total power to decide if the program should continue to be renewed.
The CSPTP has been able to survive for close to a quarter of a century because no one outside the Pentagon seems to be aware of the untested test program. Even more astounding is the fact that not one journalist in 25 years has ever reported on it. No journalist from the mainstream media has ever interviewed anyone from the Pentagon or Congress about the absurdity of eliminating transparency and penalties for Pentagon prime contractors as a strategy for increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses.
I think the CSPTP is a perfect example of everything the American people absolutely despise about their government. A program that was adopted under the guise of helping small businesses has actually cheated the middle class out of over a trillion dollars and has been supported by every President and every Congress for the last 25 years.
Now President Obama and Congress want to renew the CSPTP into its 28th year of untested testing.
If anyone ever doubted the United States Government was an obvious oligarchy that bowed to every command of corporate giants, a quick review of the 25 and soon to be 28-year history of the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program should remove any further skepticism about that fact.