Tim Ryan: “I appreciate you carrying the load a little bit here while I was away. One of the issues, and I do not think you have…”

“I appreciate you carrying the load a little bit here while I was away. One of the issues, and I do not think you have touched upon it just yet, is President Bush's decision to repeal the prevailing wage provisions that are normally intact in which anybody who would be working down in that area, the workers who would be down there getting paid, would get paid the prevailing wage of that area. President Bush has rescinded that requirement; and so now there is talk of people going down there who will be making wages much, much less than the prevailing wage for Federal Government projects that live in that area. So, in essence, these people who have been hit by the hurricane, who have been moved out to Baton Rouge or Houston or wherever, who want to go back to that community, go back to New Orleans and work, they are not going to earn the same wage that they would have earned had they been there before Katrina hit. And I just think this is kind of symbolic, or one example of what has been happening. And you talked about some of the corruption. You talked about some of the contracts. This is absolutely ridiculous to tell these people who are trying to reconstruct their lives that they should not be making the prevailing wage of people who live and work in that community. And, believe me, the money in the South is not that high of a wage. So it is not going to cripple the Government. This is Federal taxpayer money that is going down there.…”