Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I would say in response to the gentlewoman from Minnesota that the actual application of the Davis- Bacon wage act is not what we would call a fair labor standard, not when you have some hacks that sit in a room once a year and decide whether and who gets how much of a raise. It is not free enterprise. It is not merit. It is based on backroom deals. It is based on imposing union scale and making the taxpayers pay for that. If I don't hear that this year, it is the first year I haven't heard it, and that is the argument that the quality of the work isn't there. Well, the honor of our employees for 41 years, and many other merit shop employees, is on the line. We meet plans and specifications. They are Federal projects. They are inspected, and the standard of the work is indiscernible, except that we don't happen to have union squabbles on our jobs, and we pay the wage that is necessary to keep good help, and we have had some of the lowest unemployment rates that anybody has had. In fact, my rates were zero because we kept our people on year round. We take care of our employees. We provide a benefits package. So do the merit shop people I know. So often I hear from the other side of the aisle that the Federal Government has no business interfering in a relationship between two or more consenting adults, and this is one of those cases. It is a contract of labor between the employer and the employee. The Federal Government needs not be involved in that.…”