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Down in the Big Easy, President Bush decided to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 for federal employees working on repairing the city. [Link to the president's proclamation officially suspending the act.] The Davis-Bacon Act requires laborers working on construction or repair for the federal government to be paid the minimum prevailing wage for laborers of that class; i.e. the union wage. Federal law allows Bush to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act because Hurricane Katrina and its resultant events were declared a national emergency.
Even though Bush suspended the act last week for laborers, he's thinking about doing it again for service workers. His explanation is that Davis-Bacon would "increase the cost to the Federal Government of providing Federal assistance to these areas."
But the federal government isn't doing squat. You know who is? Halliburton! The company that was formerly chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, the company that sent its private security subsidiary, Blackwater, into Iraq to protect strategic oil assets, the company that sent its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown, and Root into Iraq to provide support for troops, has gotten a giant contract to rebuild New Orleans.
Not surprisingly, former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh -- the guy who left his college roommate, Michael Brown, in charge of FEMA -- managed to secure several lucrative contracts for his clients. You see, Allbaugh now works as a lobbyist, getting government contracts for companies that he represents. Here's a fun fact: Allbaugh arrived in New Orleans days ahead of FEMA in order to get as many rebuilding contracts as he could.
KBR and the other companies given federal contracts in New Orleans will benefit most from a suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act. How curious that, after September 11, there was no suspension of Davis-Bacon. Wouldn't it have decreased the cost to the federal government then and there? Or perhaps Bush didn't want to push his luck. Now, though, he knows that he can get away with giving no-bid contracts to companies that he and his associates have worked for in the past.
If you were in charge of distributing federal contracts, would you give the job to Halliburton, given their piss-poor record? They routinely overcharge the government, underdeliver what they agreed to deliver, and pocket the difference. Rebuilding New Orleans will be no different and suspending the Davis-Bacon Act makes the job all the more lucrative. How much do you want to bet Bush gets a cherry job with one of these companies after his term is over?
Comments
I have no idea what the alternatives are. But I'm not paid to find alternatives to Halliburton. Bush has people to do that. And after what you must acknowledge is a terrible service record, someone at the White House should be looking for an alternative to Halliburton. You don't keep giving contracts to someone who does a poor job. I used to go to the same optometrist for years, and he was a terrible optometrist, but we went to him because everyone in my family had always gone to him. At Miami, I got sick of incompetence and found a new optometrist who took a week to deliver glasses that the old optometrist took three months to deliver.
And that's the standard-issue Republican response to Davis-Bacon: "it benefits only unions." The text of the legislation says nothing about the working being members of unions or paying union dues; it requires that the federal government pay workers the prevailing wage in that particular area, which usually ends up being the union wage. But unions aren't in charge.
But again, why didn't Bush suspend the Davis-Bacon Act after September 11? It would have saved more money in New York because Davis-Bacon is based on the prevailing wage in the particular area involved; wages are much higher in New York City than they are in New Orleans. If were really concerned with the federal government saving money, he would have done it after September 11, too.
Posted by: Mark | September 22, 2005 1:25 PM