Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the Paul amendment. The Davis-Bacon Act was passed in 1931. We had a very different labor and diversity of wages. There were not minimum wages to the extent we have today. Today, every State has a different cost of living, different standards of what kinds of construction requirements there are, and thousands of buildings in this country are built in the private sector very safely, very efficiently. But when Davis-Bacon kicks in, for a government program, it skews the entire wage scale of that community, causing an inflation to other projects. The studies I have seen prove that Davis-Bacon increases costs throughout a community because it sets an artificial standard, not taking into account the cost of living in that area. No one can argue that the cost of living in New York is very different from the cost of living in Texas or West Virginia or Tennessee. We should not be trying to change the norm in an area by artificially inflating the costs, and that is exactly what Davis-Bacon does. If we are going to hear the voice of the people, who said last November: We are tired of business as usual in Washington and in Congress, we will pass the Paul amendment because this is the first step toward efficiency--to say that the projects going forward in this bill will not be subject to Davis-Bacon; they will be subject to bidding on contracts. And bidders do not necessarily win because they have the lowest bid.…”