Davis-Bacon
Davis-Bacon is costing us big time! Forget minimum wage. The US Congress is slipping in language to every bill of late that requires inflated wages for the projects taxpayers fund.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday explained what’s been going on.
What do the farm bill, the cap-and-trade global warming bill, the clean water bill, the housing bailout bill, and the school construction bill all have in common? Not much, except that in each one and countless others the Democratic majority in Congress has inserted “prevailing-wage” requirements that amount to a super-minimum wage.
We’re speaking of Davis-Bacon, the 1931 law that originally applied to road building and other federal construction projects and set a floor on wages in part to price black and Mexican workers out of the work. Today, its main impact is to require de facto union wages. Many reputable studies have estimated that Davis-Bacon inflates federal construction costs by anywhere from 5% to 39%. A Heritage Foundation analysis of wage data reports that in many cities the mandated Davis-Bacon wage is twice as high as the market wage.
I am all for paying fair wages and the government should not be paying folks under the table. Yet, it should be bidding out the work and accepting the lowest cost for the spec, just like all government agencies do. Taxpayers should not pay escalated wages.
Congress should not be dictating wages, it should be negotiating fair wages on behalf of its stockholders constituents.
Also blogged on this date . . .
- Unusual Mailboxes - 2008
- Quick Release Bicycles Are Illegal - 2007
- NJEA Deals Its Soul - 2006
- Holding the Courier-Post Accountable - 2006
- US APC - 2005
- Road Side Oddities: The Yellow House - NJ - 2005
- now is the TANK in the park - 2005
- JU2276: P 78 - 2002
- King's Homestead-Cedar swamp - 2002
- River Bank - 2002
- Clay Hill - 2002
Tags: business, Congress, Davis-Bacon, money, Politics
By Zoooma on Jun 12, 2008
Wow, this is surprising… is what no one should say about this. It’s just another piece of evidence that our elected politicians don’t truly care for the average American taxpayer. What happens to these people? I’m sure they all (or at least most) once had grand aspirations to make America a better place, not rip people off. It just makes me sad about our government and makes me wonder if we’ll ever see it function the way it should.