Stimulus Contracts Go to Companies Under Criminal Investigation

Stimulating waste, fraud, and abuse- big surprise.

To spend the stimulus money quickly, many of the projects to improve military facilities were added to existing contracts. Although those contracts had been competitively bid in the past, none of the new stimulus work the companies received was open to competition.

The Department of Defense awarded nearly $30 million in stimulus contracts to six companies while they were under federal criminal investigation on suspicion of defrauding the government.
According to Air Force documents, the companies claimed to be small, minority-owned businesses, which allowed them to gain special preference in bidding for government contracts. But investigators found that they were all part of a larger minority-owned enterprise in Southern California, making them ineligible for the contracts.


Call me an originalist. or whatever, but shouldn't awarding Federal contracts based upon race parameters be unconstitutional on the face of it?

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/stimulus-contracts-go-to-companies-under-criminal-investigation-1023