My parents taught me that it’s not polite to say, “I told you so.” Mom and Dad are big proponents of being polite, and their lessons (by and large) stuck. For instance, even in this day and age of abbreviated text messages and quick emails written on handheld devices, I always begin and end every business email with a salutation, and end with “regards,” or something along those lines. Unnecessary? Perhaps. But I like to think I am going the extra mile toward being polite.
Today, however, politeness is going to have to take a little hiatus, because I can’t resist saying, “I told you so.” For more than a year, I have been warning small government contractors that assistance received from a mentor firm under any federal mentor-protege program other than the SBA 8(a) mentor-protege program or DoD mentor-protege program is probably not shielded from the SBA’s affiliation analysis.
Now, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals has confirmed that participating in the VA’s mentor-protege program does not offer any protection from affiliation.