"Minority" contracting in North Carolina

Next time you hear someone complaining about the "set-asides" and other "special breaks" supposedly granted to businesses run by African-American and other "minority" owners, here's a story from yesterday's Charlotte Observer:

Two black contractors say they were offered thousands of dollars to perform insignificant work on a new prison so builders could meet state minority participation goals.

Charlotte painter Bobby Nichols stood to make more than $20,000 for going six times to the Eastern North Carolina prison to observe painting practices.

Tommy Vaughan was offered $18,000 to supply materials -- even though he says most of the arrangements had already been made.

They're among several minority firms asked to pose as "fronts" on the $94 million prison, according to a black contractors group that complained to state officials.

This end-run around contracting standards is similar to the scandals seen in the Gulf Coast, where national corporations found small-business fronts to rake in Katrina cleanup money.

Government contracting -- whether for post-hurricane corporate enrichment rebuilding or for Iraq war profiteering "reconstruction" -- has always been a scandal, and it's only becoming more so as the right's attack on government strips away what few contracting safeguards still exist.

When the innevitable scandals arise, somehow government usually takes the rap for the "waste" and "inefficiency." The public rarely sees behind the scenes, the way the system is rigged to allow corporate players to abuse the system for private gain.

While lawmakers plead poverty and the need to cut critical programs, hundreds of billions of dollars -- taxpayer dollars, the small chunk of our national economy that's under public control -- are shoveled to corporate interests.

It's not the sexiest of political issues, but a movement to reclaim control over the hundreds of billions of dollars handed to corporate American in our name would have a powerful effect on the overall economy.