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Sandy: Just Another Political Opportunity
Author: Raine    Date: 12/29/2012 21:10:50

We have all seen the aftermath of Super-storm Sandy. There are billions of dollars in damage. Neighborhoods, cities, counties will have to be rebuilt. This will require labor. It will require hiring. As horrible as all of this is, a fact remains: there will be an uptick in blue collar employment in the Tri-state area.

Having said that, the junior Senator from Kentucky has decided to take our national tragedy and use it as away to depress wages. He spoke against Davis-Bacon wages for Sandy recovery. Listen:


I think it’s a mistake to politicize things like this, particularly at a time of an emergency. So what I’ve asked for and what my amendment would do would be to allow an exemption to Davis-Bacon.
Senator Paul's amendment failed passage, 42-52.

Despite his semi-empassioned floor speech, he did make it political. For those that are not familiar, this is Davis-Bacon:
The Davis–Bacon Act of 1931 is a United States federal law which established the requirement for paying prevailing wages on public works projects. All federal government construction contracts, and most contracts for federally assisted construction over $2,000, must include provisions for paying workers on-site no less than the locally prevailing wages and benefits paid on similar projects.
Here is a little more in-depth history of its origins:
In the 1920s, contractors found that they could pay African-American workers less than white employees, and thereby submit lower bids than contractors using white union workers. Many States passed laws that required contractors on public projects to pay workers the prevailing wage in that State as a way of reducing the prospect that contractors with underpaid workers-often out-of-State contractors importing African-Americans from the South-would secure contracts.

An Alabama contractor won a contract in 1927 from the Veterans' Bureau to construct a hospital in Long Island, New York, with his low bid aided by importation of African-American workers from the South. Congressman Robert L. Bacon, a Republican who represented Long Island from March 1923 until his death on September 12, 1938, introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to require payment of prevailing wages on Federal projects. He said of the workers on the hospital project, "They were herded onto this job, they were housed in shacks, they were paid a very low wage, and . . . it seems to me that the federal government should not engage in construction work in any state and undermine the labor conditions and the labor wages paid in that state."
(snip)

As a result, a measure intended in 1931 to prevent low-paid African-Americans from taking jobs from white union workers on Federal projects became part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that President Eisenhower signed on June 29, 1956. (Section 12 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 extended Davis-Bacon Act coverage to all Federal-aid highway projects.)
To put it simply, let me quote this author: If taxpayer dollars are involved, then companies bidding on a project are required to pay certain minimum wages for certain jobs performed, to be determined by the Labor Department. Although the underlying motivations for the law are disputed, Davis-Bacon basically guarantees that contractors won't take public money, then pay workers below-market rates for their labor.

Since it became law, it was suspended four times. Three of these suspensions occurred during Republican administrations. The lone Democrat to suspend it was FDR.
President Franklin Roosevelt suspended the act in what appears to have been for administrative convenience associated with New Deal legislation. It was restored to full strength in less than 30 days with few people, seemingly, aware of the suspension.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon suspended the act as part of a campaign intended to quell inflationary pressures that affected the construction industry. In just over four weeks, the act was reinstated, the President moving on to different approaches to the problem.

In 1992, in the wake of Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki, President George H. W. Bush suspended the act in order to render reconstruction and clean-up in Florida and the Gulf Coast and in Hawaii more efficient. The impact of the suspension is unclear for the act was suspended on October 14, 1992, just days prior to the 1992 election. President William Clinton restored the act on March 6, 1993.

And, on September 8, 2005, President George W. Bush suspended the act in order to render more efficient reconstruction and clean-
up of Florida and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The act was reinstated on November 8, 2005.

In the suspensions of 1934 and 1971, the suspension applied to the entire country — possibly with the understanding that it would be restored once the immediate emergency was over. In 1992 and in 2005, only portions of the country were involved. In 1992, it remains unclear how long the suspension might have lasted — if George H. W. Bush had been re-elected. Similarly, the suspension under George W. Bush was intended to be open-ended — i.e., “until otherwise provided.” But in fact, it lasted for about two months. The suspensions are also separated by the definition of “national emergency” used to invoke them: administrative convenience in 1934, inflationary pressures in the construction industry in 1971, and issues associated with hurricane damages in 1992 and in 2005.
This brings me back to Senator Paul. His claim that we have to "temporarily" suspend the Davis Bacon act is a flat out lie. He would like to see it permanently suspended. In February 2011 he offered an amendment to exempt the FAA's infrastructure projects from Davis-Bacon.
Paul argued that exempting FAA from Davis-Bacon would allow the market to set construction wage rates, and thus would serve to keep costs in check. He estimated that his amendment would reduce the price of construction costs by $500 million in the context of FAA projects, and said his amendment is a small step toward reducing government spending. "If you can't vote for this one small step forward, you're not serious about balancing the budget," Paul said.

But Senate Democrats moved to set the amendment aside, and prevailed in a 55-42 vote.
In March of this year, the Senator unveiled his own budget proposal.
The Rand budget repeals Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements, and the super committee defense spending sequesters while ending government ownership of bailed out companies. Paul would block grant Medicaid and food stamps to the states while gradually increasing the retirement age and instituting progressive price idexing (a form of means-testing) for Social Security.

So here we are: Another disaster, another Republican taking advantage of it it order to further depress American wages for labor. Don't be fooled. This isn't about cost of recovery, this is about making sure people get paid less than they are worth. Ironically, it was the very reason WHY Davis-Bacon was put into law in the first place, to protect workers and make sure they had a living wage on par for the area they lived or worked in. Davis-Bacon has been long been a target for repeal by the Republican party:
In 1993 Representative Cliff Stearns urged the repeal of the act. Republican Sue Wilkins Myrick tried to repeal it outright in the budget battles of 1995. Weakening it was part of the Republican Party platform in 1996 and 2000. In February 1999, Representative Ron Paul attempted to repeal it. In 2004, Representative Marilyn Musgrave tried again. The latest effort by the GOP was put forth on January 20, 2011 as part of their over-all effort to cut $2.5 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years, with the repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act claimed to save approximately $1 billion annually.
Ron Paul, father of Rand has this on his archive, from 2007.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Davis-Bacon Repeal Act of 1997. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 forces contractors on all federally-funded construction projects to pay the local prevailing wage, defined as `the wage paid to the majority of the laborers or mechanics in the classification on similar projects in the area.’ In practice, this usually means the wages paid by unionized contractors. For more than 60 years, this congressionally-created monstrosity has penalized taxpayers and the most efficient companies while crushing the dreams of the most willing workers. Mr. Speaker, Congress must act now to repeal this 61-year-old relic of the era during which people actually believed Congress could legislate prosperity. Americans pay a huge price is lost jobs, lost opporuntities and tax-boosting cost overruns on Federal construction projects every day Congress allows Davis-Bacon to remain on the books.
Like father like son, I suppose. Ironically, Libertarians are unhappy with Rand. He's not enough like his father.
What's the problem with this? Rand is calling for a restriction to be removed on government, relative to federal aid. The libertarian position is that there shouldn't be any federal aid for hurricane victims, any hurricane, in the first place. It is not impressive libertarian, or solid small government, advocacy to unshackle an arm of the government beast so that it is free to create more mayhem. What is Rand thinking?
He couches this in terms of "standing with taxpayers." But making it easier for an unneeded government agency to hire more easily is not standing with taxpayers, it is standing with government. The proper small government position is to point out the dangers of government involvement in rescue operations. Rand's father got it right.


Using Super-Storm Sandy is just another GOP effort to deflate wages and attack unions. Americans deserve a living wage and Davis-Bacon is one tool to help make that happen. Rand Paul is just another long line of faces in the GOP who never miss an opportunity to turn tragedy into political gain. This is being done on the backs of the very people that need help to rebuild their communities. When Rand Paul asks where is the money is coming from, the answer is government. This is a disaster. This isn't a few people asking for some free food. They need shelter, infrastructure, jobs -- the list goes on. Our government exists for the general well being of its people.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
We should not be taking away from people during this time-- regardless of political ideology.

People like the Paul's don't seem to realize that many of the people who will rebuild live in New York New Jersey and Connecticut. They deserve a living wage. They don't deserve some out-of-the-region contractor bidding and then paying the people who actually live in these communities less than they can afford to live on. This is exactly what Rand Paul was asking for. People deserve better than this. We don't want to go back to sweat shops and Jim Crow-era laws that disenfranchise those that just want and need to earn a living wage. A disaster should not be a reason to take that away from any American.

and

Raine
 

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