The federal government has been running a racial spoils system disguised as a "small business program" since 1953.
Billions of taxpayer dollars got funneled to millionaires based solely on their skin color.
And a judge finally exposed the whole rotten scheme.
The Magic Shortcut That Launched A Thousand Scams
Congress told the Small Business Administration in 1953 to reserve some federal contracts for genuinely "disadvantaged" businesses.¹
Seemed reasonable until 1986 when bureaucrats got lazy and created a shortcut.
Instead of requiring businesses to prove they'd actually faced discrimination, SBA declared that racial minorities were automatically "presumptively disadvantaged."
Just show your skin color and get fast-tracked to government contracts.
No evidence needed, no questions asked, no verification required.
The 8(a) program was born, and it became the biggest DEI money grab in American history.
Companies figured out the game immediately.
Form a 51-49 partnership where the "majority owner" brings absolutely nothing except their race while the real business partner does all the actual work.
The racial front man collects millions for having the right skin color while taxpayers get stuck with inflated prices and shoddy work.
One Company Finally Said Enough Is Enough
Ultima Services Corp had been doing solid work for the Department of Agriculture for years, earning their contracts through competence and performance.
Then in 2018, Agriculture reserved a new project exclusively for "disadvantaged" businesses even though the agency's own internal documents admitted this would cause "adverse impact" on Ultima.²
Translation: We know this screws over the company that's been doing great work, but we don't care because DEI quotas matter more.
Ultima's owner is a white woman who'd built her business from scratch.
She sued in March 2020 for anti-white discrimination.
The Trump administration initially fought the lawsuit, but discovery revealed something stunning.
SBA claimed minorities only got a "rebuttable presumption" that could theoretically be challenged with evidence.
But the agency had zero mechanism for anyone to actually rebut it.
An SBA employee admitted under oath "there's no process for a third party to question someone's social disadvantage."
Rich minority kids whose parents were millionaires sailed through just as easily as genuinely struggling business owners.
People working in industries where their race faced zero discrimination got preferential treatment anyway.
The whole system was a fraud.
Judge Corker Wasn't Buying The Government's Excuses
Judge Clifton Corker looked at the evidence and ruled in July 2023 that the entire presumption violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.³
SBA never identified specific instances of discrimination it was trying to remedy.
The agency never checked whether particular racial groups actually faced discrimination in particular industries.
Indians got automatic preference in computer science even though they've dominated that field since it existed.
Arab Americans and Hasidic Jews who faced horrific discrimination got excluded from the program entirely while other groups who out-earned whites got preferences.
"Defendants have failed to show that the use of the rebuttable presumption in the 8(a) program is narrowly tailored," Judge Corker wrote. "Use of the rebuttable presumption violates Ultima's Fifth Amendment right to equal protection of the law."
The federal government was permanently enjoined from assuming minorities are disadvantaged based on race.
That should have killed the program right there.
Biden Tried To Save The Scam With Victimhood Essays
Instead of shutting it down, Biden's SBA issued new guidance in July 2024 requiring minorities to "submit a social disadvantage narrative."
Write an essay proving you're a victim and SBA will approve your application.
The Daily Wire filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for statistics on whether SBA actually rejected anyone based on these victimhood essays or just rubber-stamped them all.
Four months later, the Trump administration still hasn't acknowledged the request.
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler's office won't return phone calls about how they're handling the 8(a) program after Judge Corker's ruling.
That silence tells you everything you need to know about whether those essays are getting real scrutiny.
Then The Justice Department Found $550 Million In Fraud
In June 2025, DOJ discovered that over $550 million in government contracts were fraudulently steered through bribery schemes involving a former USAID contracting officer and two 8(a) contractors.⁴
Kelly Loeffler had seen enough.
She ordered an immediate full-scale audit of the entire 8(a) program covering the last 15 years of contracts.⁵
"In recent years, SBA's 8(a) Business Development Program has seen rampant fraud — and increasingly egregious instances of abuse," Loeffler announced. "Effective immediately, I am launching a full-scale audit of the program to stop bad actors from making the kind of backroom deals that have already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars."
Then in October, James O'Keefe caught an ATI Government Solutions executive on hidden camera bragging about their scam.⁶
The woman admitted ATI only does 20% of the work on contracts they win as a "Native American-owned" company while subcontracting everything else.
"Pass throughs are a great thing," she said. "And remember, there's no competition."
No competition because the racial preference locked out every other qualified company.
Loeffler launched an immediate investigation and announced the audit had uncovered "institutionalized abuse" with shell companies and fraudulent pass-throughs everywhere.
The Numbers Prove This Was Never About Helping The Disadvantaged
Discovery in Ultima's lawsuit exposed the full scope of corruption.
SBA has never — not once in 70 years — removed any group from "disadvantaged" status.
The program has no termination date, no metrics for success, no way to end even if discrimination disappeared entirely.
It's a permanent racial reparations program disguised as temporary assistance.
The "economic disadvantage" thresholds are a joke: net worth under $850,000, income under $400,000, total assets under $6.5 million.
Ultima's lawyers nailed it: those numbers "only disqualify the richest individuals."
You can be a millionaire several times over and still qualify as "economically disadvantaged" for federal contract preferences.
Meanwhile, working-class Americans who actually built their businesses through sweat and competence got locked out because their skin was the wrong color.
Real small businesses operating on thin margins couldn't compete against companies gaming the system with racial front men collecting fees for doing nothing.
Taxpayers paid inflated prices because when you eliminate competition, costs go up and quality goes down.
That's not helping disadvantaged Americans — that's robbing them to pay off a privileged class based on immutable characteristics.
Time To Kill This Monstrosity
Judge Corker's ruling was crystal clear: you cannot presume someone is disadvantaged because of their skin color.
The Biden administration spent two years trying to wiggle around that injunction with victimhood essay contests.
Now Loeffler's audit is finding exactly what everyone suspected — massive fraud, shell companies, and middleman schemes siphoning billions.
The 8(a) program cannot be reformed because the rot goes all the way to its foundation.
You can't fix a system built on illegal racial preferences by tweaking the paperwork.
The Trump administration needs to shut this down completely.
America is supposed to reward merit, hard work, and competence — not race.
For seven decades, this program has been a cancer destroying that principle while enriching scam artists and bureaucrats.
Judge Corker handed Trump the legal ammunition to kill it.
Loeffler's audit is documenting the fraud.
All that's left is pulling the trigger.
End this DEI disaster once and for all.
¹ Luke Rosiak, "The Core Part Of This Federal Race-Based Contracting Program Is Illegal, Judge Says," Daily Wire, November 18, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ "Administrator Loeffler Orders Full-Scale Audit of 8(a) Contracting Program," U.S. Small Business Administration, June 27, 2025.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ "SBA Launches Probe Into Firms Allegedly Using 'Minority' Front To Win Multi-Million No-Bid Contracts," The Daily Caller, October 21, 2025.
