Part two in a two-part series
Even by Washington’s usual Orwellian standards, the idea that the “Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class” would turn out to be smorgasbord of payoffs to politically influential labor unions is appalling. Nowhere is the report’s doublespeak dishonesty more evident than the section on “Responsible Federal Contracting.”
The trouble is that in this context the phrase really means “big money for Big Labor.” More specifically, it means one item on the union wish list in particular: “high road” contracting policy.
Federal contracts would go not to the lowest bidder, but to companies that pay a “living wage” and meet other criteria defined by the government.
Industry group Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents some 25,000 mostly non-union contractors, told the Daily Caller last month that “high road” contracting policy could increase the cost of each contract by 20 to 30 percent. Some $500 billion in federal contracts are awarded each year.
In other words, the White House wants to rig federal contract criteria so that unions will both be favored in the contracts and then paid more for the privilege. According to the Middle Class Task Force report, currently there are “inadequate controls” on the firms who get federal contracts, notably those with “substandard wages and benefits.”
In a White House memo obtained by the Washington Examiner, the policy’s rationale is based largely on the charge that “contractors can ultimately impose [indirect] costs … contribut[ing] to social problems that will increase the need for federal or other governmental actions.”
In other words, without going beyond the already generous prevailing wage laws and procurement requirements, workers on federal contracts might be paid so little they’ll have to go on welfare just to survive. This is nonsense on union-made stilts.
To address the factual underpinnings of these claims, nine Republican senators wrote a scathing letter to Peter Orzag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget about the matter.
In this series:
Monday: Big Labor’s ‘Middle Class’ Task Force
Tuesday: Sweet deals for unions in White House task force
“Indeed, [the White House has] included an utter lack of information regarding the factors that would form the basis for contracting decisions under the ‘High Road’ initiative, any cost/benefit analysis that would support the initiative, and any measures that would mitigate the negative effects of the proposal,” wrote the senators.
They continued: “Moreover, our staffs have been notified that detailed briefings will occur only after the administration has reached a decision on this proposal.”
Orzag has yet to respond to the senators’ request for detailed information about the policy. Until then, the White House is poised to impose mandates that almost assuredly cost taxpayers hundreds of billions. They aren’t lifting a finger to justify their actions to the taxpayer.
None of this is terribly surprising when paired with yesterday’s revelations in the Examiner. Executive director of the White House Middle Class Task Force Jared Bernstein was recently president of a think tank working with unions to create a retirement system that would have the government confiscate your 401(k) to prop up potentially trillions of dollars in failing union pension plans. Bernstein is making the White House’s policy recommendations about “retirement security.”
The report also spends two pages advocating for card check legislation to eliminate secret ballots in labor elections. Not only will this allow unions to bully workers, but it’s also a means to forcing employers into multiemployer pension plans, which will cover up union mismanagement by spreading liabilities to more companies and killing jobs.
Who does the White House Middle Class Task Force think will pay for all this union largesse? It sure looks like unions spent $400 million electing Democrats in 2008, and in exchange they’re getting billions from middle-class taxpayers in return.
Mark Hemingway is a editorial page staff writer for the Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
