Government dollars fuel wealth: D.C. enclaves reap rewards of contracting boom

[mahatmakanejeeves]

DC enclaves reap rewards of contracting boom as federal dollars fuel wealth

Special Report: Breakaway Wealth
Government dollars fuel wealth: D.C. enclaves reap rewards of contracting boom

By Annie Gowen, Published: August 15

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.

I have long maintained that teabaggers have a lot to be angry about. What will it take for them to stop doing the bidding of the Koch brothers and start looking into what is really going on?