LoBiondo is "on the the other side of the fence" politically?

I guess it took McLellan so long to give the administration talking points he thought it was ok, then, to ignore the main point of the question.

This seems to be a typical WH move of bait and switch, the old quarterback fake. They cut wages of workers then contend it is really helping people and businesses, especially small and minority owned get back on their feet. My guess is that it is really going to help Halliburton, Shaw, Flour, etc. much more than any of those small businesses. Say one thing and do something else. The media generally pays attention to the words and not the actions. And this is a surprise? It is the same strategy they have used for 5 years. There is nothing new here.

We're talking about savings here in terms of spending.

See! If you pay people less, you SAVE money!!!

Why do I get the feeling watching these things that Scottie is making up for getting his lunch money stolen a lot as a kid?

I have a general question. Since NOLA was already one of the most economically depressed areas in the country, what was the prevailing wage? Will suspending the Davis-Bacon act actually bring wages below the federal minimum? Also I am willing to bet that there are not too many women (or minority) owned businesses that will be bidding on the major reconstruction jobs.

Perhaps the White House and Republicans believe there is a Laffer Curve for wages. As they say if you cut Federal Tax rates the Federal Government ends up with more revenue.  If you cut peoples wages they will end up with more income.  

Unless the Laffer Curve and the impact of the Bush tax cuts are fought this nonsense will continue be put forward.

Even if there were a benefit to the women and minortiy owned (Scott made sure he said that at least twice) businesses, it's not the business owners that will suffer.  It's the poor people working for them.  You know the ones that were hardest hit and most effected.  The ones that lived paycheck to paycheck maybe on 8 or 9 bucks an hour and have no home anymore.  I'm sure that they will be jumping at the chance to help the government cut through the red tape by working for minimum wage.

I don't really understand why Bush et al. are sticking their necks out on this.  They want to 'starve the beast' and shrink the government, so why not spend as much as possible on reconstruction (via contractor wages)?  Plus, it's not like the *government* will be the beneficiary of these savings anyway; *Halliburton* will receive the benefits since they will still charge the government the same price for time/materials while paying out less in wages.

Ah, right.. I answered my own question.   

Could someone figure out what Michael Brown was being paid on a 2000 hour annual basis per hour for his work?
Then at the next press briefing you might say something like...
"Scott....when he was serving as head of FEMA, Michael Brown was earning $100,000 per year which works out to a rate of about $50 per hour in a job for which he had absolutely no qualifications.  It now appears that the administration is filled with people in high paying jobs, funded by taxpayers, who have no qualifications.  Will the President eliminate those jobs to help pay for recovery relief or at least order that the salaries be cut to reflect the experience level of the office holder?  Certainly as President, he could cut through the red tape and make that happen, couldn't he?"

CBR:  Also I am willing to bet that there are not too many women (or minority) owned businesses that will be bidding on the major reconstruction jobs.

SAT queston - which one of these is true?

Cutting wages is to helping women and minority-owned business, as:

(a) throwing lifelines is to saving lives

(b) eating dogfood is to bonding with puppies

(c) reading 1984 is to listening to Scott McClellan

(d) drowning in a flood is to drowning the government in a bathtub

(e) eliminating the estate tax is to helping small businesses

 

If you really want an example of pure, unadulterated gibberish, see this quote from the same press conference:

 

In terms of other priorities, there were other priorities. We remain firmly committed to those priorities. They are important priorities.

 

 

Yes, I agree with you. It's pure, the real thing. Unadulterated gibberish.

I'm still not sure I understand the reason for the repeal--the contracts are cost-plus.


How do you know they are cost-plus?

Scottie: "This will open up access to more business -- small businesses, including women-owned and minority-owned businesses."

Operation Offset: "Eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency -  MBDA provides funding for various Minority Business Development Centers, designed to assist minority  entrepreneurs get businesses up and running.  This program is duplicative of several other business  development assistance programs offered to all business owners. Savings: $417 million over ten years "

The use of progressive-sounding rhetoric to justify rightwing agendae is a staple of US politics.   Creeps or inauthentic progressives within progressive venues typically use what I call 'commie-compatible' pretexts to further rightwing agendae.   The W Bush Administration does this (eg the 'liberalism/slavery' gambit) particular tactic openly and shamelessly to an unprecedented extent, though it is hardly wholly new.

  Let's look closely and systematically to the repeated protestations of concern for women and minority owned businesses (not constituencies of especial solicitude at the hands of the W Bush Administration or the Republicans in general, something wonks on this issue should throw up in their face with full details, bigtime) -- from the standpoint of what the Administration would do if that were truly their concern.  For example, they could have selectively suspended (though I am not myself embracing this suggestion) the rules specfically for those categories of businesses, thus giving them a competitive advantage.   (Actually, there are other ways to give an edge to the category that wouldn't set their interests against those of workers' needs, and those are the policies I would like to see).
The point is that the policy has nothing to do with women and minorities, just like all these RW types with a sudden environmental fit seek to return portions of the City of NOLA to wetlands 'as they were before 1700', in the words of one op-ed  NY Times articles.


          &nbsp ;      We should always be on the lookout for the counterfeit invocation of progressive principles that is such a staple of US politics from many different angles, including the ostensibly progressive.

"Red Tape" here means having to deal with pesky unions. Their goal is to send us farther down the already greased, slippery slope of union-busting. Each of their daily outrages of this kind takes us closer to their ultimate goal of a society where the largest number of people work for the lowest possible wage.

Because I'd seen multiple stories like this one.

Also, because there's no way anybody is signing a fixed price contract without very clear specifications of the tasks to be performed and the timeframe within which they were to be performed. The contracts were awarded way, way too quickly for that.

 

Excerpt:

<pre>Yochi J. Dreazen The Wall Street Journal </pre&gt <pre>September 12th, 2005</pre&gt <pre> </pre&gt

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is importing many of the  contracting practices blamed for spending abuses in Iraq as it beginsthe largest and costliest rebuilding effort in U.S. history.

The first large-scale contracts related to Hurricane Katrina, as in Iraq, were awarded without competitive bidding, and using so-called cost-plus provisions that guarantee contractors a certain profit  regardless of how much they spend.

<pre> </pre&gt

 

Apparently no one in the administration is qualified to prepare specifications for all or any part of the reconstruction efforts?

Well, you can't have it both ways--fast and detailed.  To the degree the services were needed immediately, I don't see any other way than cost-plus with a prequalified vendor. Or, at best, a contract with a ceiling and prespecified prices for services.  Like the elevator service contract in my building.

Also, I can't imagine turning around a contrract with any government entity in less than 30 days.  My experience is with state and local contracting, but there is much red tape involved. Cost-plus with a trusted vendor with audit provisions doesn't seem unreasonable on its face.

I can say that a cost-plus contract is, in my opinion, a blank check. If the administration was truly concerned about contolling the cost of reconstruction (and allegedly saving the taxpayers money), they would be a little more creative in their procurement efforts.

We have good reason to be suspicious of this administration's commitment to cost control and cost-effective service procurement efforts.  In a situation like this, nobody is gonna take the work without being protected against the risk of losing money on the job. (Did you notice the mini-crisis on corpse handling?).  But that doesn't mean that the administrators should not move rapidly to normal oversight and audit controls.

And as to the other reader's comment that the "small and minority owned businesses" that the administration's actions are supposed to "help" will not get this work, I tend to agree.

The benfits to those folks would have been at the initial bid process, where there is supposed to outreach. If they're subs, they're screwed.  

But the subs are the ones who might well benefit from suspending the Davis-Bacon act. They could bid the work at prevailing rates and pay the people doing the work less than the prevailing wage.  The contractors, working cost plus, have no incentive to take the low bid, but the subs hae an incentive to pay wages that are as low as possible.

Changing the subject, I saw a note elsewhere that Davis-Bacon may have been originally designed to keep black workers out of contracts let by the government--that there was an unholy union between unions and segregationists on this one, originally. Have you seen anything in that regard? 

Great points. A few more to consider are these:

1. Doing it "fast" does not obviate the need to do the detail. Granted, having prequalified vendors do the work on a cost-plus basis does save a good deal of time and administrative resources, but no one should get the impression that these contractors will be able to hit the ground running without first doing a good bit of due diligence on the extent of the damage and the work that needs to be done - the detailing. And they will get paid for it. Perhaps this is the only feasible way to handle the situation. Perhaps having a limited number of "owner's representatives" (architects/engineers/etc.) work on a cost-plus basis to do this front end work and develop specifications is another way. I'm not suggesting that construction jobs should be awarded through some extensive rfp/bid process. What I am suggesting is that prudent business practices should be observed where possible.

2. I may be missing some of your point about the subcontractors benefitting or being "screwed" by the suspension of the prevailing wage requirements. It seems to me that putting the subs in a position where they are telling their customer they will pay prevailing wages and then having them reap the rewards of paying less seems a dubious benefit at best. While the contractor may not be concerned about the financial aspects of that arrangement (because he/she is being paid cost-plus), from a public relations perspective, it may be relevant whether the sub is actually paying prevailing wages or not (that is IF this issue ever gets the press it deserves - we are not talking about finding a better price on widgets or a more productive workforce, we are talking about deliberately misrepresenting the cost of a sub's labor). Putting small and minority owned businesses in the position of profiting in this fashion seems far afield from the alleged intent of the administration's actions.

As for the racial/racist history of the Act, I'm far from well-versed. I do know, however, that race has been raised in most discussions of this subject I have seen since the President took action. To me, this makes it all the less likely that small, and particularly minority-owned businesses will want to speak out of both sides of their mouths on this issue.