Defense Secretary Announced Pentagon To Take ‘Sledgehammer’ To ‘Oldest DEI Program’ For Federal Contracts

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the program provides eligible small businesses with access to contracting opportunities in the federal marketplace.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced plans for the Pentagon to “sledgehammer” the 8(a) Program, a federal contracting program that has aimed to assist socially and economically disadvantaged small business owners since it was created in 1978. In the Trump administration’s priority of dismantling programs and initiatives geared toward historically marginalized Americans, Hegseth called the program the “oldest DEI program in the federal government.”

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the program provides eligible small businesses with access to federal contracting opportunities. The program also provides businesses that participate in the program with training and technical assistance designed to strengthen their “ability to compete effectively in the American economy.”

For small businesses to be eligible to participate, they would have to be majority-owned by U.S. citizens who are socially and economically disadvantaged.” In FY2019, the SBA awarded firms $30.3 billion in federal contracts, including $9.5 bullion in 8(a) set-aside funding.

According to ESG Today, Hegseth called the program’s initiative to provide opportunities for small businesses “a laudable goal,” but claimed the program has “morphed into swamp code words for DEI, race-based contracting.”

He also alleges that “in many, many instances,” the businesses that benefit from the program don’t actually perform the contracted work, even claiming the program is a “breeding ground” for fraud.

What Small Businesses Can Expect Moving Forward With Hegseth, Pentagon

In his new initiative, Hegseth said he is ordering a line-by-line review of every small-business, sole-source 8(a) contract over $20 million.

“If a contract doesn’t make us more lethal, it’s gone. We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don’t help us win wars.”

Hegseth, who some organizations have deemed unfit to serve as the U.S. Secretary of Defense because of his lack of senior leadership and bureaucratic experience compared to his recent predecessors, added that the goal is to spend taxpayer dollars to build “our defense industrial base with businesses large and small that share our mission.”

He said money will not be used to “line the pockets of beltway fraudsters, or to advance the agenda of DEI apologists. Only lethality.”