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The Spectacle Blog
Washington, D.C.’s suburbs are doing well despite economic bad times. Indeed, the counties surrounding the Imperial City are among the wealthiest in the nation.
But this should come as no surprise. A lot of the money collected from taxpayers across the nation ends up being spent close to Washington.
Millions of dollars worth of federal contracts transformed Anita Talwar from a government accounting clerk into a wealthy woman - one who can afford a $2.8 million home in the Washington suburbs with its own elevator, wine cellar and Swarovski crystal chandeliers.
Talwar, a 59-year-old immigrant from India, had no idea that she and her husband would amass a small fortune when she launched a company providing tech support to the federal government in 1987. But she shrewdly took advantage of programs for minority-owned small businesses and rode a boom in federal contracting.
By the time Talwar sold Advanced Management Technology in 2004, it had grown from a one-woman shop to a company with more than 350 employees and $100 million in annual revenue - all of it from government contracts.
Talwar’s success - and that of hundreds of other contractors like her - is a key factor driving the explosion of the region’s wealth over the last two decades. It also has exacerbated the gap between high- and low-wage workers, which is wider in the D.C. area than almost anywhere else in the United States.
The sort of minority set-asides which enriched Talwar are one of government’s greatest special interest scams, enriching the influential and well-connected rather than the disadvantaged. But the problem runs much deeper. Some spending is essentially pure waste. Other federal contractors do good if not necessarily useful work. Collectively the infamous Beltway Bandits constitute yet another interest group dedicated to feeding at the public trough.
As the crowd feasting at taxpayer expense grows ever more numerous, it becomes ever harder to reduce government’s size and outlays. Even many advocates of limited government end up working for the state. Controlling federal spending requires confronting the beneficiaries of government programs as well as those in government.
View all comments (8) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/16/getting-rich-the-old-fashioned
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LiveFreeOrDie| 8.17.11 @ 1:00AM
Many business owners put the company in their wives name, taking advantage of "preference" towards woman-owned or minority-owned businesses. Who can blame them? It doesn't matter if you grew up in an affluent neighborhood, attended private school and were raised by millionaire parents as long as you are able to check any box other than white male. As usual the Government handouts, much like foreign aid, never reach the intended. Maybe someday our dim leaders will realize disadvantaged people struggle because of economic disparity and not from skin color. As long as I'm dreaming maybe someday the government will do what they say they are going to do or accomplish something without spending six times the actual cost. One can only hope.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 8.17.11 @ 6:56AM
The collectivist polices of the Ruling Class, which are highlighted by race and gender preferences, have destroyed millions of job opportunities in this country.
While a few may get rich off the gender and minority scheme, many millions more suffer under it because the business class simply takes the least risk and moves risk overseas.
In this case the risk involves hiring a woman or minority who will always claim they are being discriminated against even when the facts prove otherwise.
In fact, in the Lily Ledbetter case there was no evidence to support her allegations. She never made a complaint and after her former supervisor passed away she filed a lawsuit.
She was awarded 20 million by a sympathetic jury and the Supreme Court overturned the decision rightfully pointing out that she waited too long to file the suit. Result?
A new law on the books which gives women unlimited time to file suits. It was hailed by Obama as his first legislation.
Since it passed we've lost millions of more jobs.
One law firm has written an opinion that even if the alleged victim dies 20 years later the right to sue passes to the spouse.
Keep in mind there was already an Equal Pay Act on the books. If the Republicans had not taken back the house there was a new bill in the cooker titled the Paycheck Fairness Act. It was already slated for signing by President Obama once it passed.
In short, the U.S. Congress keeps doing everything possible to regulate the job market. In so doing, they have destroyed millions of job opportunities.
With the power of the internet it is now easy to hire people in other countries, and at lower rages and without risk to overcome these idiotic laws.
The laws may be on the books but millions of women are now unemployed because the jobs left this country in response to the risk.
Male Matters | 8.17.11 @ 9:12AM
Re: "Keep in mind there was already an Equal Pay Act on the books."
Good advice.
No legislation to date has closed the gender wage gap — not the 1963 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, not Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, not the 1991 amendments to Title VII, not affirmative action (which has benefited mostly white women, the group most vocal about the wage gap), not diversity, not the countless state and local laws and regulations, not the horde of overseers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.... Nor will a "paycheck fairness" law work.
That's because pay-equity advocates, at no small financial cost to taxpayers and the economy, continue to overlook the effects of this female AND male behavior:
Despite the 40-year-old demand for women's equal pay, millions of wives still choose to have no pay at all. In fact, according to Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," stay-at-home wives, including the childless who represent an estimated 10 percent, constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years,” he says in a CNN report at http://tinyurl.com/6reowj, “many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home.” (“Census Bureau data show that 5.6 million mothers stayed home with their children in 2005, about 1.2 million more than did so a decade earlier....” If indeed more women are staying at home, perhaps it's because feminists and the media have told women for years that female workers are paid less than men in the same jobs — so why bother working if they're going to be penalized and humiliated for being a woman.)
As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an “employer” who pays them to stay at home.
Both feminists and the media ignore what this obviously implies: If millions of wives are able to accept no wages and live as well as their husbands, millions of other wives are able to accept low wages, refuse overtime and promotions, work part-time instead of full-time (“According to a 2009 UK study for the Centre for Policy Studies, only 12 percent of the 4,690 women surveyed wanted to work full time.”) , take more unpaid days off, avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining — all of which lower women's average pay. Women are able to make these choices because they are supported or anticipate being supported by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. (Still, even many men who shun marriage, unlike women, feel their self worth is tied to their net worth.) This is how MEN help create the wage gap. If the roles were reversed so that men raised the children and women raised the income, men would average lower pay than women.
See “A Response to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act” at http://tinyurl.com/pvbrcu
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 8.17.11 @ 9:41AM
Brilliant comment. Thank you.
JAWilson | 8.17.11 @ 7:10AM
In all the debt talks, waste theft and nonperforming programs of agencies are never ever discussed. I remember a blizzard a couple of winters ago where the daily cost of running DC was $100 million/day. We should start cutting there by cutting three days pay in DC per week. We wouldn't miss their effort.
Pecos Pete| 8.17.11 @ 7:55AM
With a budget of $3+ trillion only a fool would believe that LOTS of people are NOT feeding at the trough. It is not just government employees with excessive salaries, health benefits and unbelievable pensions. There are many shyster companies ripping into the stimulus money. And you can bet the farm that Congress Critters (and their families) are taking their cut.
JimH| 8.17.11 @ 9:23AM
Unfortunately this is an example of what some people, including some Republicans think of when you say Capitalism. The party needs to do better in making the distinction between being pro market versus pro business.
DJC| 8.17.11 @ 11:28AM
Nowhere in this article did I read that Advanced Management Technology did not provide value for their payments from the government. Nor did I read that she lied about being a woman "...it had grown from a one-woman shop...". The laws on the book were enacted for specific reasons by people with an agenda. If I were running a business seeking government contracts, I would take advantage of existing laws, not ignore them. That would not make me a "crony capitalist".