Cass Ballenger: “Congress is under increasing pressure to balance the budget. The taxpayers are demanding that Government be more…”

“Congress is under increasing pressure to balance the budget. The taxpayers are demanding that Government be more efficient and held accountable for the expenditure of their hard-earned tax dollars. The Davis-Bacon Act is the perfect example of a law that is expensive, unnecessary, and difficult to administer. The act must be considered in light of its economic effects as well as its objectives. The Davis-Bacon Act has long since outlived any usefulness it may have had. The rationale for special wage protection was never very persuasive but the act remains law, adding millions and millions of dollars to Federal construction costs. Davis-Bacon was enacted to discourage non-local contractors from securing Federal construction jobs by hiring cheap labor from outside of the project area. Proponents of the legislation complained that this practice was disruptive to the local wage structure. When the act was passed 64 years ago, there was no Federal minimum wage or other labor laws with protections for workers. Since that time, Congress has enacted numerous laws to protect the wages and working conditions of all workers, including construction workers. The taxpayers are the real losers under the Davis-Bacon Act. Some $48 billion of construction spending annually falls under the Act's coverage. In effect, Davis-Bacon is a tax on construction. For example in Baltimore, the Davis-Bacon requirements add between 5 and 10 percent to the costs of inner city housing.”