Ditching Davis-Bacon in the Gulf Reconstruction might Gasp! Help the Economically disadvantaged.

That might make the Bush Administration look good! Oh, no! How Unreasonable! Quick! Somebody shut Mickey Kaus up! He sounds too foolish again! (Hat tip to Eve Tushnet)

Writing for Slate, Mickey Kaus observes:

whatever red tape there is can't help speed and efficiency on the contractors' side.. Nor does there seem to be a good reason to favor the Halliburtons over smaller firms. There is plenty of work to be done on the Gulf, and that alone will presumably drive up wages, as "B" notes--unless the "low skill, low productivity folks" who get hired outside of Davis-Bacon "for general clean up" are illegals attracted to this country by the availability of Katrina jobs. The answer to that problem would seem to be to enforce the immigration laws. ...

P.S.: Jason DeParle's recent NYT piece on post-Katrina poverty policy quoted economist Jared Bernstein arguing that suspending Davis-Bacon hurts the "poor and disadvantaged." But the lower-skill workers who (according to "B") would get jobs absent Davis-Bacon's restrictions are much more likely to be "poor and disadvantaged" than the plugged-in AFL-CIO members. Since when is it the goal of liberalism to preserve the wage inequalities that the even the market doesn't support? Plus Davis-Bacon, as "B" notes, operates to exclude minority contractors. ... Better to just create lots of jobs, as fast as possible, and force employers to compete for everyone, raising wage levels generally (as happened at the end of the '90s). To this end, John Edwards has called for a "job creation" program built on the "principles that FDR and the WPA taught us." Sounds good. But FDR, remember, had to break an AFL strike over the "prevailing wage" issue to make the WPA work. ...

In order to make this cogent analysis, he needed to commit the heresy of actually understanding a contractor's perspective:

A contract out for bid does that not have Davis-Bacon will have more bidders, especially from small and minority firms that don't have the administrative staff accustomed to handling the onerous paperwork that Davis-Bacon brings with it. You'll find small outfits that do a great job and can get bonding – payment and performance bond are required on construction contracts – but get overwhelmed with the paper.

For large projects, the prime contractors will have more subcontractors to choose from for the same reason. ... Whatever the size of the project or the size of the company, wages won't necessarily be lower. Whether you're big or small you've got to pay a fair wage for the worker's skills, and you've probably already got a core workforce that you have to keep happy. What Davis-Bacon brings is the need to certify the skills of each employee in the labor category he's working. You can do the work, meet the contract's milestones, and be on schedule, yet have portions of your scheduled payment withheld because of missing certifications or other paperwork foul-ups. Besides, there will be lots of work, good workers will be in demand, and their wages will reflect that.

To make matters worse, in another post, he quotes a Federal Regulator that doubts the effacy and marvelousness of Davis-Bacon:

Let's hear from someone who does know something about Davis-Bacon! Kausfiles has received an e-mail from a seemingly well-informed source deep within the federal bureaucracy:.

I am a Federal Government Contract Specialist (job title: means I award contracts on behalf of the government) and know a lot about this law and have dealt a lot with this law. ... [I]f you want to see why Bush suspended the Davis Bacon act, read what it entails:

http://205.130.237.11/far/current/html/Subpart%2022_4.html#wp1101814

That's the regulations. The reason isn't to save the government money. The reason may be politically motivated, but the reason is more this: they are stupid regulations and waste time. Davis Bacon requires anyone who wants to do a construction contract (read those Regs, and if you have real insomnia take a look at the part ...that has to do with construction ...) has to go through an inordinately larger number of steps than you have to even for regular contracts (which is still daunting).

Construction in the eyes of the Federal Regulations means a lot. Any change or improvement on a surface (painting, for instance) is construction. Davis-Bacon
applies to all of it. It requires people to get wage determinations, which are published by the Department of Labor and are notoriously inaccurate to actual market conditions, then engage in a long series of exercises with the contractor to insure they are actually paying people said wages and examine their records.

This wastes a lot of a more precious resource than government money: government time. Enforcing and implementing Davis-Bacon adds days, weeks, months to processes. Bush cut it because it makes sense. We'd still be in the preliminary stages of setting up contracts for reconstruction if Davis Bacon was in place, but now we can just go ahead and use the normal acquisition regs for those contracts.

In other words, to get the contractors to work fast, you need to suspend Davis-Bacon. That's why he did it. Granted weaknening wage laws sucks and it's probably an intended political side benefit, but it's FAR from the true issues at stake.

[Emphasis added]

To which, Mr. Kaus wisely observes:

Preserving Davis-Bacon may endear Democrats to the AFL-CIO's construction unions, but it's a slightly trickier case to make to voters--"Hey, this will really slow rebuilding and make it way more expensive for taxpayers!" Why take a stand defending the indefensible?

(emphasis in original) Contrary to Reasonable Democrat and MSM assertions to the contrary, dispensing with Davis-Bacon provides greater opportunities for more workers and contractors and less cost to we taxpayers. Plus, the residents of the Gulf Coast will receive far more efficient and timely reconstruction. What a surprise that the usual suspects have spittled all over the carpet, mouth-foaming their way to the tired bromides of socialism lite. Meanwhile, the core constiuency of the Democrats benefits from the removal of regulations that Party elites now work overtime to restore. But the Democrats are the workingman's party, and they care about the poor, so it's ok! Besides, everybody knows that CST can't be implemented without serious Nanny Statism. Pay no attention to Pope JPG's CA; he was just a hierarchal an out-of-touch Fool that didn't understand the free pursuit of the One Thing that Matters, anyway. So Unreasonable!

How will the Democrats explain to Minorities that their efforts will handicap minority contracting firms, and actually favor big-time operators like Halliburton? Look for MSM to scream and blather about Mr. Kaus' heresy soon. The unwashed masses can't know what's going on. Why, they might actually demand that Democrats stop playing politics with people's lives and welfare! The Nerve!