The next big contracting scandal, part 2

My latest entry predicting trouble ahead for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses definitely struck a nerve, with people both lambasting me and supporting my position.

Upfront I want to say I made a couple of mistakes or improperly interpreted the laws creating the SDVOSB program.

I want to address those here. The 0 to 100 percent disability rating refers to the amount of compensation a disabled vet is due, not the degree a vet is disabled.

A zero rating doesn’t mean a person doesn’t have a disability; it only reflects the degree the disability impacts a person’s earning ability.

Several commenters took great offense at my zero rating statement in the blog. No insult was intended.

Also, a disability doesn’t have to occur in a combat zone but only during military service.

I also was criticized for how I characterized the self-certification process. The VETS contract and the Veterans Administration require certification documents to participate in their contracts.

I think my biggest mistake was one of omission. I should have clearly stated that I support the idea of veteran-owned businesses and I feel they deserve programs to help them build businesses. I think several commenters took my earlier post to mean that I was against vets, which I’m not.

Having said all this, I still stand by the basic premise of my blog. This is a contracting program with a lot of potential for unintended consequences, from companies getting an advantage they don’t deserve to outright fraud.

As one commenter put it, it is time to look beyond whether a veteran qualifies for the program. “It’s time we also looked at whether these laws actually benefit the people they were intended to help,” the commenter wrote.

On a positive note, I appreciate the passion behind the many comments. I think it shows how strongly veterans feel about serving their country, whether as members of the military or businessmen and -women selling goods and services to the government. It is one of the things that makes our country great.

I also appreciated some of the digs, from the commenter who wrote, "Nick, did you just wake up from a long nap?" to a comment forwarded to me from LinkedIn dubbing Washington Technology as Washington Technologically Disadvantaged. There is a long tradition in journalism of making fun of the name of your publication. I once worked for the Daily News-Record, which we affectionately called the Daily News-Wrecker.

But the bottom line is that I took all the comments very seriously and posted all of them on the website, and I've joined the LinkedIn group for SDVOSB to get better sense of the issues facing those businesses. This won't be the last time we write about these companies.