Good bye free market

Here's a little known (at least little media covered) fact about the stimulus bill. All state and local jobs on energy, housing, agriculture or construction that are funded with stimulus money must pay union wages versus market wages. It's called the Davis-Bacon provision and the Office of Management and Budget slipped it in the bill before Obama signed it.

What does this mean? Stimulus dollars will put fewer people to work. It effectively eliminates competitive bidding since the unions will all set the same wage. How about letting people and companies bid on projects with no such restrictions so our tax dollars will go farther? How about including non-union shops in on the stimulus?

Again, this is the candidate of change?

He railed against the previous administration for its No Bid contracts complaining it led to excessive costs and spending. This union only provision does the same thing. What was the campaign term - Lipstick on a Pig?

One study estimates that with about $200 billion in the stimulus set for construction projects, Davis-Bacon raises the costs by about $17 billion.

Looks like that was the cost of the labor vote last fall!