The theology of federal contracting

Rep. Allen West, (R-Fla.), isn't a theologian, but even so he may have explained the afterlife in a recent House Small Business Committee hearing.

When a company leaves the commercial world and heads toward the bright, white light that is federal contracting, the company goes into one of three states of being, and the realities of two of those states can be painful.

“In my simple Southern way of saying it, it seems like we’re talking about hell, purgatory and heaven,” the would-be reverend West said.

Heaven, of course, is populated by the big guys. In West’s theology, the big guys are the biggest contractors, which operate worldwide and can handle the mega-sized contracts. They ultimately commune perfectly with the federal government, as major partners in meeting its mission and carrying out its will. (Although there are a few devils in heaven.)

But many companies don't go to heaven, at least not right away. According to West, a small company arrives at the pearly gates of the federal marketplace in the afterlife and is immediately cast into hell.

Yet the federal government, in its divine mercy, helps to prop up the small companies. It sets aside contracts and gives them training on how to avoid getting burned in the federal marketplace.

The government even provides advocates. Those advocates continually call out at the gates of procurement officials, who have power in an agency. Those powerful people might listen to the advocate’s plea to unbundle a large contract so small companies can compete for chunks of the work.

If a small company can grow out of hell, it may graduate from a small set-aside program into a mid-sized company. They then are lifted up to purgatory.

“Yet in purgatory, they kind of find themselves left out to hang,” West said.

His concern is for those mid-size companies.

“These businesses grow and then fall off the map, and that creates a new problem,” he said.

He doesn’t want to see happen what some mid-size companies that are in purgatory say happens to them. Purgatory may be worse than hell.

“What do we do to also make sure that we incentivize growth for small businesses to get out of hell and to get into purgatory?” he said.

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Sep 16, 2011 at 9:40 AM