Heeding a call from Congressional Republicans, President Bush on Thursday suspended a federal law governing workers' pay on federal contracts for the Hurricane Katrina-damanged Gulf Coast.
The official reason — and I am not making this up — is deficit reduction. Talk about adding insult to injury ...
Bush, parroting the language in a letter he received earlier in the week from House Republicans, suspsended the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. The act sets a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region. Suspension of the act allows contractors to pay lower wages.
Now, I'm all in favor of deficit reduction. I have been flabbergasted at five years of Bush budgets, causing nearly $2 trillion of debt. I have been appalled at the bloated legislation the Republican-led Congress has approved, including the recent $286 million federal highway bill that included an estimated $23 million of pork — for projects like upgrades to the National Packard Museum in Ohio — or the recently passed energy bill, criticized for being laden with pork and corporate welfare.
Given that, in the midst of a horrific catastrophe — for which Congress has approved $62.3 billion in federal aid, and may need to spend double that — is now the time to be concerned with excessive spending?
"We must ensure that a catastrophe of nature does not become a catastrophe of debt for our children and grandchildren," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) chairman of the House Republican Study Committee.
Think about the logic, though. Instead of adding $125 billion to the federal debt, suspension of the act will, what, drop that number to $120 billion? $115 billion?
Gosh, there couldn't be any other way to counter the effects of paying people the minimum wage for federal contracts. Like, how about forgetting about Bush's proposed $70 billion of additional tax cuts, which overwhelmingly help the wealthy? Or how about pushing for a reversal of recently approved pork, as suggested last week by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK)?
Article comments
1 - David R. Mark
There's a regarding this subject at JABBS.
2 - gonzo marx
once again, the GOP has shown it's colors...rather than work to elevate everyone they push down the average person to increase the Profits of their buddies and donors...
do you honestly think that this measure will make those contracts any cheaper, or will the extra cash just go into the top dogs pockets?
puh-leeEEEEeeeEEEeezzZZzze
Excelsior!
3 - RedTard
I think it is a good idea. This "Minimum Wage" garbage is just more red tape that allows politicians to hand contracts to their buddies instead of having an actual competitive bidding process.
The government should take the lowest bid from any company capable of doing the job.
4 - AndieP
This is yet another example of the contempt Pres. Bush feels for the poor. This benefits no one but his fat cat friends (note who has "won" some of the non-competitive contracts for Katrina recovery awarded by FEMA the day following Mr. Cheyney's visit to the area!)
These people have lost everything and now this act insures that they will have little chance to recover. The contractors will reap a huge windfall. After Halliburton's problems in Iraq, I am surprised they are leaving themselves open to further investigations.
5 - Nancy
I'm not: at the rate the investigations against Halliburton & its subsidiaries are going, everyone involved will be long dead and beyond reach of punishment or censure by the time any (if any indeed) results or condemnations are released, and that's what they're counting on.