Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this is a Davis-Bacon amendment that addresses the MILCON component of the legislation that is before us. This Congress has had this debate a number of times over the past years. The history of the Davis-Bacon Act goes back to, I will say, a couple of Republicans that got together and decided they didn't want the construction market to have to face the competition of African Americans coming out of Alabama to build a Federal building in New York City. They took such great offense to that that they wrote legislation that is known as the Davis-Bacon Act, and the language says it requires a prevailing wage. I have spent 42 years in the construction business, if I count the work my son does as he owns that company today, and we have dealt with that, I would say, nearly every year, if not every year, throughout all that time. What we have is the Federal Government interfering in the relationship between the employer and the employee and setting a wage scale that is called prevailing wage. But that is set by folks sitting inside a room with a closed door, and they come out of there with the equivalent of a union wage mandated by the Federal Government. That is the net effect. As we have kept records over the years, the increase in the cost of the projects for us has been between 8 and 35 percent, depending on how much is labor, how much is materials, and the nature of the job. The Heritage Foundation has done a study or two.…”