PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 2,2014) - According to the American Small Business League, thefailed Pentagon Comprehensive Subcontracting PlanTest Program has been in place for 25 years and yet not onejournalist from the mainstream media has ever reported on the controversial andsecretive program.

The Pentagon quietly adopted theComprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program in 1989 after journalists andCongress uncovered the fact that the Pentagon had falsified data on the actualpercentage of federal subcontracts that had been awarded to small businesses,including minority-owned firms. Congress also found the Pentagon was notcomplying with federal law, the Small Business Act of 1953 that requires aminimum of 20% of all federal contracts and subcontracts be awarded to smallbusinesses and 5% to small, minority-owned firms.

In one example, the House ArmedServices Committee investigated the Air Force F-22 Stealth Fighter contract.The Committee found that as opposed to the minimum 20% small business goalrequired by law, the Air Force had given Lockheed Martin a small businesssubcontracting goal of just .016%. A story in the Washington Post by StevenPearlstein began, "The Pentagon's biggest new weapons program -- the F-22stealth fighter -- is proving to be as invisible to small and minority-owneddefense firms as it is to enemy radar." The Air Force was forced toallocate an additional $501 million to small businesses.

To avoid another embarrassingCongressional investigation the Pentagon enacted the ComprehensiveSubcontracting Plan Test Program. The program was disguised as a plan to increase subcontractingopportunities for small businesses. In reality it was carefullywritten to do just the opposite. Under the Comprehensive Subcontracting PlanTest Program the public, Congress and the media would no longer have access toindividual subcontracting plans and the quarterly reports that could be used totrack a prime contractor's compliance with their subcontracting goals.

In addition to the elimination ofreports, all firms participating in the program were also exempt from federallaw that required prime contractors to pay "liquidated damages"for failing to achieve their small business subcontracting goals.

In 2004 a Government AccountabilityOffice investigation, Report GAO-04-381, found no evidence that the TestProgram had achieved any of its goals. That fact went unreported in themainstream media.

Even the language in the 2015 NationalDefense Authorization Bill that proposes to extend the Test Program into its 28^th yearacknowledges there is no evidence the Test Program hasever worked. This fact has also gone unreported in the mainstreammedia.

During the last 25 years the Pentagonhas refused to release any data that showed the Test Program achieved any ofits goals. The Pentagon is currently refusing torelease any data on the Test Program under the Freedom of InformationAct. This is yet another fact that has gone unreported in the mainstreammedia.

The American Small Business Leagueestimates that over the last 25 years American small businesses have beencheated out of over one trillion dollars in subcontracts as a result of theComprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program.

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