Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Richard Arnholt was interviewed on the Orange Slices podcast discussing the future of the set-aside market and the impact the new administration has had on mergers and acquisitions within the government contracts industry. During the conversation, Richard covered a variety of topics, including changes to and the future of the 8(a) Business Development program, small business contracting goals, and the Rule of Two.
In speaking about the administration’s revisions to the statutory guidelines dropping from 15% to 5% for set-asides, Richard said of the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) rewrite “One of the goals that was set out in the executive order was the elimination of any non-statutory requirements under the Federal Acquisitions Regulations. So, this change dropping from 15 to 5 [percent] for 8(a) small business awards, is in line with the general approach the administration is taking to try to simplify and eliminate requirements applicable to the government contracts space to just those that are statutory obligations.”
When asked the future of small business set-asides in federal government contracting, Richard said, “the set-aside requirements, which do have a statutory basis, are going to continue. That said, they are going to look quite different, they already do. The significant change in the goals for 8(a) from the prior administration to this one will have a very significant impact on individual businesses. In addition, we’ve seen a significant number of contracts terminated, a significant number of grants terminated, and so small businesses are going to need to adjust their goals for what goods and services they are providing to the government.”
Richard closed out the podcast when asked about the general state of the small business government contracting space by saying, “I think there is certainly a future in this [federal contracting space]. The federal government will continue to be the largest purchaser of goods and services on the planet … I think the recommendation would be to remain flexible and whatever you do, provide the best goods and services possible for your government customer. There’s no substitute for great service and a great product and no matter what happens, the government is going to continue to need the private sector to fulfill its national security mission, public support missions.”
The full episode, “GovCon M&A Talk with Richard Arnholt,” was released September 18 by Orange Slices and is available online. Richard also wrote an article on these topics for Federal News Network, “New SBA Goals: Down But Not Out.”