I am involved in the contracting process quite often, sometimes with the Federal, State, and local governments. I’ve done business with all three. And I can say with absolute certainty that racial and gender preferences cost the American people money.
Case in point: my boss quoted some material to the government at price X. He also quoted it through pass-through that had some desirable minority trait–details vary, but in this case it was a disabled veteran–at price X plus 15% or so. They went with the second option, even though it was the same exact material. All that happened was the government signed a contract with the disabled veteran, and he signed a contract with us. He pocketed much or all of the difference. His job? Be a disabled veteran and be in the food chain. I see this all the time: one person companies that I call “cut outs”, who just flip contracts.
We need to call Affirmative Action what it is: an integral part of the political spoils system. If you’re black and you vote Democrat, contracts will come your way. Same if you’re a woman, or Hispanic, or transgendered bisexual performance artist.
The only conceivable case for Affirmative Action is to rectify racism. The simple fact of the matter is that there is NO evidence–NONE–that qualified people are being denied jobs or contracts based upon race. There is MUCH evidence that UNqualified people are being advanced due solely to their race. This is racism.
The secondary implicit argument made by advocates of Affirmative Action–never made explicitly, obviously–is that African Americans and Hispanics and women are too stupid and incompetent to survive an openly fair and competitive environment. I disagree with this assessment.
Yet, it is patently the case that people who are mollycoddled–who are taught shortcuts in the game of life, rather than the rules–develop bad habits of petulance, ingratitude, a sense of entitlement, and poor work ethic. All of these factors do lead to inferiority. This is not an outcome dictated by accident of birth, but accident of political and following social environment.
The simple fact is that any spoils system requires money flowing out of the coffers of the State, and that anyone who can direct this outflow to their people, will ensure the loyalty of those people.
It will be argued that Republicans engage in corporate welfare. In what might that consist? Lower tax rates? Less obstructive regulations?
What do these lead to? More jobs, and better jobs. Remember, no public sector job is sustainable without taking the same (or slightly more) amount of money from the pockets of private enterprise, who then cannot invest it or spend it.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the use of Unions to obtain better working conditions. But when the government MANDATES membership for some professions, and when it allows open labor trusts such as the UAW, then it no longer has anything to do with free markets, and everything to do with just one more aspect of the spoils system.
Every State should be “right to work”, no exceptions. This should be the law of the land, by Constitutional Amendment, if necessary.
And we need to get rid of these bullshit “minority participation” worksheets, which are not just used by the government, but by large corporations. This is de facto institutional racism, which I thought we had decided was a bad thing.