More Evidence Of The Stimulus Payoff
Feb 7, 2009 Political
The Associated Builders and Contractors today denounced the repeal of Executive Order 13202. Barack Obama repealed the EO which “prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.”
Obama repealed the EO so now agencies can make union only agreements when bidding out the projects funded with taxpayer money. This is a payoff for union support.
There is no other reason to repeal EO13202 since companies that use union employees were free to bid on contracts. The EO prevented agencies from requiring companies to use union employees but never prevented them from competing with companies that did not.
Typically, non union labor is not as costly and bids are more reasonable. The repeal of the EO will, according to ABC, discriminate against 84% of the construction workforce:
“Construction contracts subject to union-only PLAs are designed to be awarded exclusively to unionized contractors and their all-union workforces,” said Pickerel. “Absent the economic benefits of competitive bidding, union-only PLAs are known to increase construction costs between 10 percent and 20 percent and discriminate against minorities, women and qualified construction workers who have traditionally been excluded from union membership.
“Union-only PLAs drive up costs for American taxpayers while unfairly discriminating against 84 percent of U.S. construction workers who choose not to join a labor union,” added Pickerel. “All taxpayers should have the opportunity to compete fairly on any project funded by the federal government.” ABC Press Release
The so called stimulus plan is nothing more than a spending bill that is designed to put in place a bunch of items Democrats have tried to get for a long time. Despite their assurances that no “pork” would be in the bill, the thing is comprised almost entirely of pork projects that do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy.
The bill is a payoff and the repeal of EO 13202 is another step in the process of rewarding those who supported the sainted one.
Look for more of this as Democrats work to pay off debts and to build stronger support for the next election.
Change we can believe in?
As far as I am concerned, they can keep the change.
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Tags: bribes, corruption, eo 13202, Obama, payoff, repeal, union