Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is the amendment that doesn't allow Federal funding to support any project that enforces Davis-Bacon rules. Davis-Bacon rules have--actually, it is the last remaining Jim Crow law left on the books in America. It was established by a couple of Republicans in New York back in about 1932 or 1933, when they realized that of the few construction projects that were going on during the Great Depression, there was an Alabama contractor that underbid the local unions in New York to build a Federal building up in New York. That contractor who came out of Alabama brought his labor out of Alabama, African Americans out of Alabama. So they got together and decided, let's pass a law to have a little trade protectionism between Alabama and New York. We are going to control who is in the union, and we will control the wages, and we will control the benefits. I have been in the construction business, as of last Monday, for 42 years. We have paid Davis-Bacon wage scales most of those years, if not all of those years, and King Construction understands what this does. First, it inflates wages, and the inflation of wages is dictated by a little board and committee that is supposed to be evaluating what is described as prevailing wage. But it is not prevailing wage, it is union scale, and it is a BOGSAT is what it is.…”