Well, this is an interesting development:
Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland says government contractors should be chosen on the merits of their applications, their bids and their capabilities. Hoyer is the House Democratic whip, the second-ranking party position.
Hoyer told reporters Tuesday, “It’s not a requirement now I don’t think it ought to be a requirement. So I’m not in agreement with the administration on that issue.”
The White House’s proposed executive order on this has been drafted, but hasn’t been issued yet, so Hoyer’s decision to speak out could be pretty significant. Last month, I explained in detail why Obama’s campaign finance plan is really a sop to unions, who are both a natural Democratic constituency and make up 12 of the 20 biggest political contributors over the last two decades:
Again, this was further fleshed out my recent story for the THE WEEKLY STANDARD on the death of unions:
Just after the executive order on PLAs, the stimulus bill was passed, which contained $188 billion in federally overseen construction projects as well as a provision applying Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” laws to stimulus projects. This further slanted the awarding of federal contracts to the 17 percent of the construction industry that is still unionized. Heritage Foundation labor expert James Sherk estimates that the Davis-Bacon requirement alone could inflate the cost of the stimulus by as much as $17 billion.
Note that a similar campaign finance plan put forward by Democrats last year, the DISCLOSE Act, didn’t pass in part because the double standards over the way it treated unions versus corporations became an issue.
