Obama Forcing Gov’t Costs to Rise With Union Sop

22 Mar, 2010 by Warner Todd Huston

Print this article Font size -16+

Here we are in an economic downturn and Barack Obama is forcing government costs to rise. The Detroit News has noticed it, too, with a recent editorial on Obama’s absurd “responsible contractor” rule on vendors that contract with the federal government.

This new rule would force all vendors that contract with the government to exist under union rules, union pay scales, and union pensions, whether they belong to a union or not. Even entities that are not unionized will be forced to observe union rules if this plan is implemented.

This new rule would force costs to the federal government to soar, would favor unions over non-union vendors, and would lead to further political contributions from unions to Democrats. It should be noted that unions make up less than 20% of the American workforce, so this new rule would favor a miniscule sector of our American workforce. It would favor those union shops to which Obama wants to direct our tax money over most American workers. Most American workers would not benefit from this rule at all.

Worse, Obama plans to hire even more federal policemen to make sure that vendors obey The One, the supreme commander in D.C.

The policy is couched in bland language speaking of focusing federal contracts on contractors with good records on following existing labor laws, which is already federal law and policy. But the Associated Press reports that it has obtained documents indicating that the federal Labor Department would have compliance officers checking on health insurance, paid leave and wage schedules of bidders if the policy is adopted.

The Det. News reported that the Davis-Bacon Act has already added $8.7 billion to the federal budget and this rule would make that worse.

The DetNews laments that Obama is seemingly not interested in the best deal from his vendors but only seems to want to pay back union political contributions.

… the fairest criteria for all taxpayers, union and nonunion alike would be for the government to award contracts to the qualified bidder who offers the best service or product at the best price.

And they couldn’t be more correct.