On the recordFebruary 3, 2011
the amendment I have offered to the FAA bill is an amendment to exempt the FAA from the Davis-Bacon restrictions. Most of us know, when we talk about schools being built in our district or in our neighborhood, the cost of schools and anything built under Davis-Bacon determines prevailing wages. This means if you are a carpenter making usually $14 an hour in Bowling Green, KY, the government comes in and says, Well, you need to pay $35 an hour. It inflates the cost of building projects and it does us no good as a society. What happens is we build less schools, less airports, and we are unable to have enough money in our country to provide for the things we want. We can build 20 to 30 percent more airports if we don't force union wages that are above the market wages on our government projects. I think it is inexcusable, at a time when we run a deficit of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in a year, that we want to inflate the cost of government projects. The marketplace should determine market wages, and we should have a marketplace that allows us to build more airports and more schools. I think it is not a good idea to have the government get involved by forcing wages above the market wage. If you pass this and you allow an exemption from Davis-Bacon, you will save about $500 million just in this department. If you would allow this across government, you would save $11 billion.
