One thing that is difficult for Small Business is obtaining “citable” past performance in the view of the Government. If you are working you clearly have past performance on how you perform on projects. The good news is that certain individuals within Government recognize this struggle and as recently as 07 January 2016 in “Defending America’s Small Contracts Act 2016” they proposed the following:

“Section 302 also proposes establishing a pilot program to provide qualified first tier subcontractors the opportunity to obtain past performance ratings directly from contracting agencies and prime contractors. These subcontractors will then be able to use such a past performance rating to establish its past performance for a prime contract opportunity.” – See more here.

It is my personal belief that a pilot program designed around improving the transparency of first tier subcontracts could greatly benefit all industries. The biggest benefit is that I believe there would be an increase of small business looking to get a prime contract that they otherwise would be limited to under the current regulations. It could also make Prime contractors also give the necessary recognition for work performed by small business.

The Government is a power house of spending in this country and it only makes sense for them to have laws that would address the need to increase “Main Street” America once again.