[dude1394]

And from someone who knows what they are talking about.

kausfiles

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/ht...html#wp1101814

That's the regulations. The reason isn't to save the government money. The reason may be politically motivated, but the reason is more this: they are stupid regulations and waste time. Davis Bacon requires anyone who wants to do a construction contract (read those Regs, and if you have real insomnia take a look at the part ...that has to do with construction ...) has to go through an inordinately larger number of steps than you have to even for regular contracts (which is still daunting).

Construction in the eyes of the Federal Regulations means a lot. Any change or improvement on a surface (painting, for instance) is construction. Davis-Bacon
applies to all of it. It requires people to get wage determinations, which are published by the Department of Labor and are notoriously inaccurate to actual market conditions, then engage in a long series of exercises with the contractor to insure they are actually paying people said wages and examine their records.

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. Granted weaknening wage laws sucks and it's probably an intended political side benefit, but it's FAR from the true issues at stake. [Emphasis added]

Working fast doesn't only have the obvious benefit--in the case of Katrina, it also allows the government to harness the power of its notorious September Spending Spree:

The issue here is that the federal government has a lot of leftover money (as it does at the end of every Fiscal Year, since the money turns into pumpkins midnight on September 30). In order to use it up, all contracts have to be awarded by Sep. 30. It's hard enough getting a regular large service contract done and awarded in a month, one that involved Davis Bacon would be impossible. Therefore a lot of money that the agencies want to use and repurpose for Katrina relief and field activities effectively COULDN'T BE if Davis Bacon was in place. It would essentially go to rot, or have to be used on other less important projects, what we usually do with end of FY money. In a sense, Bush is allowing for all that leftover money to now be dumped into reconstruction when it otherwise couldn't be. [Emphasis added]


In sum: 1. Contra Reed, Bush had a perfectly good, non-political reason for suspending Davis-Bacon. 2. Contra Drum, Davis-Bacon doesn't just boost wages. It creates lots of "archaic red tape" and wastes much more money than just the increase in workers' pay. . ...

Preserving Davis-Bacon may endear Democrats to the AFL-CIO's construction unions, but it's a slightly trickier case to make to voters--"Hey, this will really slow rebuilding and make it way more expensive for taxpayers!" Why take a stand defending the indefensible? 2:35 P.M. link