Trump to Waste Billions on Union Goons’ Control of Infrastructure
(Paul Chesser, Liberty Headlines) As President Donald Trump began to roll out specifics about his $1 trillion plan to expand and improve the nation’s infrastructure last week, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao told a House committee that the administration intended to use “prevailing wages” under an 85-year-old law that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars more than the projects otherwise would.
But a group that advocates for individual workers’ freedoms claims that building and repairing the nation’s roads, bridges and waterways under the 1931 Davis-Bacon wage law would represent a huge financial and political payoff to Big Labor’s power brokers.
While it’s generally believed that rank-and-file union members helped Trump win in Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania – despite labor leaders’ support for Hillary Clinton – the National Right to Work Committee says rewarding organized labor with unjustifiably inflated wages would cost taxpayers too much. And, the organization says, adhering to Davis-Bacon would result in far fewer jobs created and a smaller number of badly needed projects completed.
“This outdated and wasteful law puts independent contractors and subcontractors at a disadvantage in submitting proposals – effectively barring hundreds of thousands of non-union workers from working on government-funded projects – by forcing them to follow Big Labor-dictated job classifications, pay scales, work rules and compliance requirements,” wrote Mark Mix, president of NRTWC, to President Trump in an April letter.
And while Davis-Bacon is law in the United States, NRTWC says the president can circumvent it by executive order. But Chao indicated to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday that Trump has no plans to use his presidential pen, citing expected Democratic opposition if he did.
“The administration’s proposal is to include Davis-Bacon,” Chao testified, as reported in The Hill. “For the infrastructure proposal, I’d like to see it passed, and I understand that without the provision, the minority would not sign on.”
At least one Democratic member of Congress confirmed Chao’s assumption.....................
http://www.libertyheadlines.com/trump-save-billions-leaving-big-labor-infrastructure-plans/
