Big Labor’s Stimulus Roadblock

Mickey Kaus makes the argument that it isn't the Republicans who are obstructing Obama's stimulus plans, its the labor unions.

It’s not the Republicans who are obstructing Obama, it's the unions, says Mickey Kaus.

The home "weatherization" jobs in the stimulus bill were subjected to Davis-Bacon wage regulations--a favorite of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department--under which federal Labor Department officials establish "prevailing wage" rates that must be paid. All that finagling takes a certain amount of bureaucracy, however--and time. ABC's Jonathan Karl:

According to the GAO report, the Department of Labor spent most of last year trying to determine the prevailing wage is for weatherization work, a determination that had to be made for each of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States. [E.A.]

As a result, the Department of Energy apparently weatherized only 22,000 homes under the program. Another pre-existing program, which doesn't have to comply with Davis-Bacon, appears to have weatherized about 100,000 homes, if my math is right.