Posted on 10/12/2005 10:41:29 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
My colleague Bruce Reed says that President Bush waived the Davis-Bacon "prevailing wage" rules for post-Katrina federal construction projects
"because a group of conservative members of Congress saw a convenient opening to drive liberal members crazy."
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Let's hear from someone who does know something about Davis-Bacon! Kausfiles has received an e-mail from a seemingly well-informed source deep within the federal bureaucracy:.
I am a Federal Government Contract Specialist (job title: means I award contracts on behalf of the government) and know a lot about this law and have dealt a lot with this law. ... [I]f you want to see why Bush suspended the Davis Bacon act, read what it entails:
http://205.130.237.11/far/current/html/Subpart%2022_4.html#wp1101814
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This wastes a lot of a more precious resource than government money: government time. Enforcing and implementing Davis-Bacon adds days, weeks, months to processes. Bush cut it because it makes sense. We'd still be in the preliminary stages of setting up contracts for reconstruction if Davis Bacon was in place, but now we can just go ahead and use the normal acquisition regs for those contracts.
In other words, to get the contractors to work fast, you need to suspend Davis-Bacon. That's why he did it.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
Read this crappola! It's unreal. It proves PJ O'Rourke right when he claims that the three branches of government are Money, Politics and B--l S--T!
R O T F L M A O
Isn't this just a tip of the old iceburg? We have folks up in D.C. making rules about rules-if that makes any sense! I'm glad Pres. Bush suspended the "rules" and got folks jobs and lots of work!
I ran across a situation caused by the Minority Hiring and Blah, Blah, Blah Law. Company A, capable of doing a large cement job, was contracted, providing they had X members of minorities. They promised to contract them. So Company A subcontracts a part of the job to Company B, minority owned. The job sub-contracted was for 40 feet of a 600 yard long walkway. Company B got twice as much money for the 40 feet, and subcontracted the 40 feet to a white concrete guy. The 40 feet, altogether, cost 1/8 of the whole job and a minority never entered the job site.
BUMP
Millions and millions of tax dollars were wasted in this same fashion on the building of the runways in Atlanta, Ga. I know of $2,500,000 in contracts let to minorities that never hit a lick on the darn job, and that was just in hauling the dirt!! The Big Dig in Boston is the same crap, and we wonder where all the money is going!! If we know this, then why in hell doesn't the government know this? Could it be that maybe some of those clowns are on the take too? It couldn't be....could it?
Davis-Bacon, a democrat law passed at the behest of union thugs to keep minorities down.
Davis-Bacon has never been anything but a payoff to unions. It needs to be permanently revoked.
I commented on this here:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/004084.html
Please explain why Miami-Dade needed this suspension.
I thought President Reagan emasculated Davis Bacon?
The law essentially mandated union scale wages on all federal work regardless of where done.
The Bacon Davis Act is an unearned subsidy to organized labor. Bush's fault is that he hasn't attempted to get Congress to revoke it in every case. Nobody needs Bacon-Davis. It makes government projects take longer and cost more. It screws every taxpayer that doesn't have the government pork shoveled into their wallet. It originated as a law to prevent people from hiring recently emancipated African-American slaves who were willing to work for lower wages. it has nothing but a corrupt and evil history.
Get your facts straight. Davis-Bacon was a Republican law sponsored by Rep. Robert Bacon (R-NY) and Sen. James Davis (R-PA). Signed into law in 1931 by President Herbert Hoover (Republican).
Okay, fess up, it was one of you, wasn't it?
It's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
I think it makes themm feeeeel good to say "we put all these minorities to work so they can share in the wealth." All the while, the contractors (minority and/or not) are getting rich off the taxpayer.
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