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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

The Bush Agenda: Make the poor even poorer
Posted by Jill | 12:52 PM

This is just astounding:

Republicans are lining up behind plans to use vouchers to help displaced students find new schools, including private ones, and a mix of vouchers and tax breaks to help flood victims pay for health care expenses, from insurance coverage to immunization. A draft Senate Republican plan for post-Katrina policy includes both ideas, according to Republicans who have read the document.

Last week, Bush issued an executive order lifting so-called Davis-Bacon rules mandating that construction workers on federal contracts be paid the average wage in a region. The White House argued the regulations were slowing reconstruction and raising federal costs.

Now Labor Department and White House officials are examining a similar move for service workers covered by the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act, which extended prevailing wage rules to service workers. Administration officials are concerned that workers on demolition and debris removal jobs could protest that even with construction wage supports lifted, they should be paid prevailing wages because their work is more service-related than construction-related.

The Depression-era Davis-Bacon Act includes a provision allowing its suspension for natural disasters. The Service Contract Act does not, and its suspension may be unprecedented, labor experts say.


New Orleans is going to be the test case for Bushonomics -- a society in which workers with no leverage work for barely a pittance of pay, and who still can't afford things like health care, because the cost of health care will be paid for with "tax breaks" which won't benefit them enough to pay for health care because even the paltry minimum wage we currently have won't apply to them. So how much are they likely to receive from tax breaks, twenty dollars a year?

Contracts for reconstruction have been issued on a cost plus basis, which guarantees the contracting company a certain profit regardless of how much they spend, and allows them to pass on their costs, so there's no discipline to restrain spending. Of course, in George Bush's America, the spending restraint is to come ONLY from the wages side.

Once again, NO sacrifice is asked of ANYONE except the neediest -- those people who have been displaced and who may want to come home, and are faced with a government that's supposed to represent THEM as well as Halliburton and Bechtel and KBR -- but instead is planning to turn them into little better than slaves.

Have I mentioned today how much I hate these people? Have I mentioned how much I hate what they're doing to my country? Have I mentioned that I hate how they cater to people's WORST instincts?
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