{"id":18395,"date":"2026-02-10T12:38:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18395"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:38:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:38:56","slug":"hegseth-tackles-the-oldest-dei-program-in-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18395","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth Tackles ‘the Oldest DEI Program in Government’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration is continuing its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In fact, just last month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced his intention to take \u201ca sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Connect with others in your state in prayer.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the Daily Wire:\n<\/p>\n

Last month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made a seismic\u00a0announcement: \u201cWe\u2019re taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government. A program few people outside of Washington have ever heard of. That I haven\u2019t heard of. It\u2019s called the 8(a) program.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

We\u2019re confident that Daily Wire readers knew about the program: Our own investigative reporter Luke Rosiak\u00a0testified\u00a0to the Senate about the fraud-ridden, multi-billion dollar minority contracting scheme just a month earlier. He\u2019s written about it\u00a0extensively\u00a0for years. Under the decades-old 8(a) program, 5% of all federal contracts are \u201cset aside\u201d for minority- and women-owned businesses. That\u2019s right \u2014 instead of a competitive process that identifies the best company with the best value, government officials direct contracts to specific companies, with no bidding at all, based on minority status.\n<\/p>\n

As Rosiak told the Senate, it opens the door to sordid corruption. When black businessman Walter Barnes got\u00a0half a billion dollars\u00a0in USAID contracts by bribing a government procurement official with $1 million, the contracting officer was able to guarantee he could make good on the bribe only because the 8(a) program gave him that discretion.<\/p>\n

Secretary Hegseth explained just how much his department is spending on DEI through this program. According to the Secretary, \u201cIn the Pentagon, $100 million sole-source contracts go out the door to these 8(a) firms almost every day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Not only are these businesses taking government money without competition, they are also, according to the Secretary, not even working. \u201cThey take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top,\u201d Secretary Hegseth added, \u201cthen pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm, commonly known as Beltway Bandits.\u201d This has, in his words, created a breeding ground for fraud.\n<\/p>\n

According to the Daily Wire, the \u201cBeltway Bandits\u201d refers to \u201cbiggest players in the government contracting business\u201d in the D.C. area. Rather than fighting for competitive, direct contracts, these \u201cbandits\u201d use minorities as middleman to secure contracts under 8(a).\n<\/p>\n

Secretary Hegseth may have exposed this embedded DEI program, but there\u2019s still more work to be done. Let\u2019s pray for Congress to act on this information, and let\u2019s pray for an end to divisive DEI programs and policies in our nation!\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying about the 8(a) program? Share your prayers and scriptures below.<\/h4>\n

(Excerpt from the Daily Wire. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America \u2013 Pete Hegseth, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=177116549)
\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 2 minutes The Trump administration is continuing its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In fact, just last month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced his intention to take \u201ca sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government.\u201d Connect with others in your state in prayer. \u00a0 From the Daily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[834,210,2295,414,835,2965],"class_list":["post-18395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-dei","tag-government","tag-hegseth","tag-oldest","tag-program","tag-tackles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}