Under Pressure, Bush Does the Right Thing

Today, according to a Denver Post article, the Bush Administration will lift its suspension of wage protections under the Davis Bacon Act for those helping rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. I would love to be able to congratulate our administration for doing something right but only extreme pressure led the Cheapskate in Chief to lift the suspension.

"It was always intended to be temporary," the Administration cries in its own defense, unable to entertain the idea that it was wrong. Additionally, they claim they only suspended the provisions of the Act to reduce rebuilding costs.

Suspending the act reduced the prevailing wage to the point where those who would be rebuilding the Gulf Coast would be big corporations employing vast numbers of illegal alien workers. American workers and local companies would have been priced out of the market. The work would have attracted more illegals through the sieve we call the border with Mexico and, hopefully, they would remember the nice President Shrub and his Republican lackeys when their children, citizens by U. S. birth, started to vote some years from now. Now all this is a bit of a stretch but you can bet, if it occurred to me, it occurred to Rove. Social engineering at the expense of Gulf Coast workers?

In all fairness, the last paragraph was unfair. All the conspiracy theorist has to do is to pose questions, not offer answers. One thing is clear: This administration favors the wealthy - in this case, the corporations and mega-homebuilders and the McMansion owners - over the American working class - in this case, the local companies and workers trying to rebuild their own communities. They'd rather see a half-million underpaid Mexicans on the job than ten thousand well-paid Americans, particularly of the union variety. Looking at the spending cuts the Republican-controlled congress is contemplating and thinking that the Administration still wants more tax cuts favoring the wealthy - I spend the $23 per month I get from the Obfuscator in Chief's great tax relief on gasoline and home heating now - while cutting programs for the less fortunate demonstrates what the party of Lincoln has become. The word "Bought" comes to mind.

The Administration's suspension of Davis Bacon was an affront to every American worker. Democrats and a few Republicans with consciences pressured them to relent. I'm sure they would have anyway at some future point, aren't you?