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Congratulations to Iviana Stewart! USWCC Member Takes Action to Breakthrough to Access Federal Contracts 8/14/2012



Did you know?

Year after year the federal government takes our tax dollars and spends our hard earned revenues without regard for the legal and moral obligation to award women-owned firms our fair share of federal contracts.

In 1994, Congress established an incredibly low 5% goal for contracting with women-owned firms. Since 1994, year after year, the federal government has failed to meet or beat the 5% goal for federal contracting with women-owned small businesses. The consequences of this discriminatory failure? Women-owned firms have lost $90 billion of dollars in opportunities. This colossal opportunity loss negatively impacts women's business growth, retirement preparedness, our families, our employees, our employee's families and our communities.  

Between FY 1995 and FY 2010, the total loss to women-owned firms due to the failure of the federal government to meet the 5% contracting goal is $89,926,788,994.

The U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce is stepping up again to lead the charge to finally put an end to decades of financial discrimination against women. No more will we allow politicians to proclaim their love of women without putting the money (due us) where their mouths are – we expect our fair share of federal contracts. With your support and focused leadership on this very important issue, the political shell game will end here and now.  

There is a clear path of action for our political leaders to act upon to end the decades of discrimination against women.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Issue Executive Order 

Lead the federal government through an executive order that does not require Congressional action.

CONGRESS

Take immediate action to pass legislation that will end years of discrimination against women-owned small business owners.

PASS:  HR 4203, the Women's Procurement Program Improvement Act of 2012.  The Women's Procurement Program Act of 2012 which provides much needed refinement of the restricted competition program that will make it more impactful and easier for Contracting Officers to use by removing three key problems: (1) It removes contract dollar thresholds. (2) It adds a sole source program that is in alignment with the 8(a), HUBZone and Service Disabled Veteran programs using the criteria for economic disadvantaged and industry under-representation already established for the existing program. (3) It removes the Contracting Officers obligation to approve self-certifications which has been a major obstacle to the favorable use of the program.
PASS LEGISLATION TO RAISE THE GOALS & BRING REAL TRANSPARENCY:

• RAISE THE GOAL for purchasing with women-owned firms from the paltry and discriminatory 5% goal to a 10%, which more accurately reflects our standing in U.S. business ownership.
• RAISE THE GOAL for purchasing with small businesses from 23% to 35%, which more accurately reflects the make up of U.S. business ownership.
• REMOVE THE DISCRIMINATORY LIMIT on NAICS codes available to the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program. No other limited-competition program has such discriminatory limitations. This action will open up the program to all women-owned small businesses.
• END THE EXCLUSIONS to the small business contracting goals. These unwarranted exclusions from the 23% small business contracting mandate are simply unfair carve-outs that rob small businesses of billions of dollars in lost opportunity every year.
• BRING TRANSPARENCY by mandating the federal government publish timely and detailed reporting of federal contracting with small businesses that go far beyond the "total spent" and "percentage spent" with small business. Using the existing data already collected by the federal government, it would be extremely easy to provide much greater and informative details such as, (a)  the total number of women-owned firms securing federal contracts over each of the last four year (as compared to other large and small businesses), (b)  the average and mean size of these contracts, (c) all details broken down by agency and purchasing group.
• RIGHT-SIZE the Small Business Administration budget so as to effectively manage the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program.