We should repeal the Davis-Bacon Act

Website that agree

1. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/repealing-the-davis-bacon-act-would-save-taxpayers-$10-9-billion

Reasons to agree:

1. We are broke.


2. Suspending the DBA means hiring five workers at market rates instead of hiring four workers at a 22 percent premium.


3. If we have a limited amount of money, it is better to employ more construction workers than to pay a lot to the few that kiss up to their union bosses. We do have a limited amount of money. We can no longer pretend that we have an unlimited amount of money. We may want to give really high wages to give to everyone, but we shouldn't make rules that require the federal government to overpay their workers. 


4. If Congress is not willing to reduce construction spending, suspending the DBA would make each public construction dollar go 9.9 percent further. This would create more bridges and buildings at the same cost to taxpayers. It would also employ 155,000 more construction workers. 


5. The Davis–Bacon Act (DBA) requires the government to pay construction wages that average 22 percent above market rates.


6. The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates DBA rates using a highly flawed methodology. Under the DBA, contractors on all federally funded construction projects must pay their workers at least prevailing market wages. However, the Department of Labor (DOL) estimates DBA rates using a highly flawed methodology. The Inspector General has criticized the DOL for:




1. Using a self-selected sample instead of a scientific random sample to estimate DBA rates;


2. Allowing 100 percent error rates in audited samples of returned DBA surveys; and


3. Permitting long delays in updating DBA surveys.[3]




7. We are broke.


8. The Davis-Bacon Act was a union giveaway.


9. The Davis Bacon Act artificially raises costs for government projects.


10. Removing the Davis-Bacon act would save taxpayers more than $10 billion a year in the process


11. The Davis-Bacon Act was a Jim Crow law.


12. The Davis-Bacon Act was passed to prevent African Americans from working on government projects.




1. Congressional representative John Cochran of Missouri said that he supported the Davis–Bacon Act because he had "received numerous complaints in recent months about Southern contractors' employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South." (Williams, Walter Congress' insidious discrimination. Jewish World Review March 12, 2003 / 8 Adar II, 5763).


2. Congressional representative Clayton Allgood of Alabama said that he supported Davis-Bacon because "Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. This is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country." (Williams, Walter Congress' insidious discrimination. Jewish World Review March 12, 2003 / 8 Adar II, 5763).




13. The free market can not work, when the market is not free.


14. The Davis-Bacon Act was a big government solution that harms the tax payer, by forcing government projects to cost more. We could have never built the rail roads without cheap labor. If they could unions would run every productive activity out of the country, as long as they could be paid 6 figures to do nothing. If American citizens want to work for less on Government projects, then that is good for the tax payer. All jobs can't be high paying. Unfortunately low skilled jobs are going to have to be low skilled. When government steps in and tries to force low skilled jobs to pay well, then they remove the insensitive to gain skills. It is better to live under the strong arm of efficiency, than be stabbed in the back by professional do-gooders that turn the world upside down. 

Images That agree:

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 1

# of reasons to disagree: -0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -0

Total Idea Score: 1

Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change

The federal government should align compensation with the private sector

 Reasons to agree:

1. We are broke. 


2. Federal jobs have typically had better benefits, but they did not make as much as private sector jobs.


3. Even people who work for the government should acknowledge that our country is going to have a bad future, if our best and brightest work for the government.  


4. With projections of huge federal deficits for years to come, policymakers should scour the budget looking for places to cut spending


5. The OWS protest should look to government with anger at their compensation more so than looking at CEOs. 


6. During the last decade, compensation of federal employees rose much faster than compensation of private-sector employees.


7. The average federal civilian worker now earns twice as much in wages and benefits as the average worker in the U.S. private sector.


8. A recent job-to-job comparison found that federal workers earned higher wages than did private-sector workers in four-fifths of the occupations examined.


9. It is unfair to ask taxpayers to foot an ever-increasing bill for federal workers, especially when private-sector compensation has not kept pace. We pay for their jobs. They should not be making more money than us. They don't produce anything. Government should be small. It should protect us and that is about it. 

Reasons to disagree:

1.  

Interests

Probable interest of those who agree:

1. 
   

Probable interest of those who disagree:

1. 
   

Common Interest

1. 
   

Opposing Interest

1. 
   

Images That agree:

1. 


2.   

Images That disagree:

1. 
   

Videos That agree

1.  

Videos That disagree

1.  

Website that agree

1. http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/overpaid-federal-workers

Websites that disagree

1.  

Related arguments:

1. 
   

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 1

# of reasons to disagree: -0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -0

Total Idea Score: 1

Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change

Obama is right about evolution

 Q: If one of your daughters asked you, "Daddy, did God really create the world in 6 days?" What would you say?

A: What I believe is that God created the universe, and that the 6 days in the Bible may not be 6 days as we understand it. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth, that is fundamentally true. Now whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible, that I don't presume to know. But one last point--I do believe in evolution. I don't think that is incompatible with Christian faith. Just as I don't think science generally is incompatible with Christian faith. There are those who suggest that if you have a scientific bent of mind, then somehow you should reject religion. And I fundamentally disagree with that. In fact, the more I learn about the world, the more I know about science, the more I'm amazed about the mystery of this planet and this universe. And it strengthens my faith as opposed to weakens it.

Source: 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008

Obama is right about anti-intellectualism

Reasons to agree:

1. People hate smart kids.
2. Americans are way over-fascinated with calling smart people nerds, and geeks. This is not done so much in other cultures.

Background: "I try to avoid an either/or approach to solving the problems of this country. There are questions of individual responsibility and questions of societal responsibility to be dealt with. The best example is an education. I'm going to insist that we've got decent funding, enough teachers, and computers in the classroom, but unless you turn off the television set and get over a certain anti-intellectualism that I think pervades some low-income communities, our children are not going to achieve." ~ Meet The Press, NBC News Jul 25, 2004

Obama is right on Merit Pay

Reasons to agree:

1. We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. 
   

2. " Teachers are extraordinarily frustrated about how their performance is assessed. And not just their own performance, but the school's performance generally. So they're teaching to the tests all the time. What I have said is that we should be able to get buy-in from teachers in terms of how to measure progress. Every teacher I think wants to succeed. And if we give them a pathway to professional development, where we're creating master teachers, they are helping with apprenticeships for young new teachers, they are involved in a variety of other activities, that are really adding value to the schools, then we should be able to give them more money for it. But we should only do it if the teachers themselves have some buy-in in terms of how they're measured. They can't be judged simply on standardized tests that don't take into account whether children are prepared before they get to school or not." ~ Barack Obama, 2007 Democratic primary debate on "This Week" Aug 19, 2007

Background

Q: As president, can you name a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line & say, "You know what? Republicans have a better idea here?"

A: I think that on issues of education, I've been very clear about the fact--and sometimes I've gotten in trouble with the teachers' union on this--that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers.

Q: You mean merit pay?

A: Well, merit pay, the way it's been designed, I think, is based on just a single standardized test--I think is a big mistake, because the way we measure performance may be skewed by whether or not the kids are coming into school already 3 years or 4 years behind. But I think that having assessment tools and then saying, "You know what? Teachers who are on career paths to become better teachers, developing themselves professionally--that we should pay excellence more." I think that's a good idea.

Source: 2008 Fox News interview: presidential series Apr 27, 2008

Obama is right to want higher teaching standards

Reasons to agree:

1. Those students in Education departments across the country have had worse ACT, and SAT grades than other college departments. They even have worse grades than Criminal Justice departments (cops). It is sad that cops can know math, geography, history, and science, better than those that we put in charge of teaching our children. We need higher standards for teachers, if we are going to pay them more. I'm not saying every teacher is stupid. If you are a teacher, and you are offended, than you prove my point. You are stupid. The facts are the facts, and if you get mad because of the facts, than you are stupid. I'm from Idaho. I'm not offended when you say bad things about people from Idaho, in general, because I know that you are not talking about me specifically. Of course their are a lot of very smart people who are teachers. I thought about going into teaching. My father, whom I love and respect very much is a teacher. My mother in law is also a very good teacher. Two of my 3 brothers got degrees in teaching. Their is nothing wrong with teachers, with colleges of education, etc, we just need to raise their standards if we want our students to do better. 

"I'll recruit an army of new teachers, pay them higher salaries and give them more support. In exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability." ~ Barack Obama speech at 2008 Democratic National Convention Aug 27, 2008.

Obama is right that quitting high school is quitting on your country

Reasons to agree:

1. "In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a prerequisite. And yet, we have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish. This is a prescription for economic decline. So tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country. That's why we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."  Source: 2009 State of the Union address Feb 24, 2009

Obama passed on stupid urban legends that exaggerated racial problems.

Reasons to agree:

1. "I don't want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college." ~ Barack Obama, fund-raiser in Harlem, NY, Nov. 29, 2007.

   "Simply untrue, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There may be a case for arguing, as some Obama supporters have done, that the total number of black prisoners is slightly higher than the total number of black students. But I can only fact check the comparison the candidate actually made, which was between young black men in prison and in college. Rather than acknowledge the error, the Obama campaign declined to provide statistical support." Source: GovWatch on 2008 Pinocchio Awards for Biggest Fib of 2007 Jan 1, 2008. As GovWatch points out, there are more black men in prison (age 18 to 100 years old) than there are "young  black men" in college. However Obama said there were more young black men in prison than in college, which is far from true.

Obama has the right approach to fatherhood

Reasons to agree:

1. "How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?" "Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities." "But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child--it's the courage to raise one." Barack Obama, Chicago church speech, in Change We Can Believe In, p.235 Jun 15, 2008. I'm not saying this makes Obama a better dad than Bush, or Clinton. I'm just making a comprehensive list of all the good and bad things about Obama, and I think he is a pretty good dad. We haven't gotten so bad that we don't care about this sort of thing, or elect people who are very bad to their kids.

There was too much pork in the stimulus bill

Reasons to agree:

1. "One of Obama's most poignant missed opportunities was in not using the historic $787 million stimulus package to reorder state and local government's spending priorities. As states and cities continue to spend ceaselessly and without results on education and healthcare, they're crowding out investments in the physical infrastructure that the private sector needs to rebuild the economy.

"In the stimulus, of the more than $200 billion that went directly to states and cities, nearly 70% went to education and healthcare spending. Only 24% went to infrastructure spending.

"But the states and cities in the most trouble already spend way too much on education and healthcare, pushing taxes up and sending private industry away. They don't spend nearly enough on infrastructure, which attracts the private sector and builds the real economy.

"As David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, said at the Regional Plan Association's annual meeting a week ago, nationwide, we are the 'highest in the world' on education. We are 'the highest in the world' on healthcare. 'Nobody comes even close.' On infrastructure, by contrast, we are 'below average' in both critical new investments and in much-needed maintenance spending.

"And, as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell said at the same conference, when President Dwight Eisenhower left office, infrastructure spending was about 12.5% of non-military domestic spending. Today, it's about 2.5%.

"This shortfall is obvious to anyone who's ridden on an "express train" to the outer boroughs or driven on the Cross Bronx Expressway recently. But in New York, as elsewhere, the stimulus money has just allowed the state to ramp up spending on its wasteful, inhumane Medicaid program and its nosebleed public-school spending.

"Meanwhile, the subways are about to crumble into oblivion -- taking the economy with them. The same is true of decaying infrastructure in California and in aging states across the nation.

"The stimulus was a once-in-a-generation chance to change this. Instead, it made the situation worse."

-- Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal

Probable interest of those who agree:

1. Republican Party Affiliation (40%)
2. They agree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
   
3. Racism (5%)
4. Political laziness & issue crossover.

Probable interest of those who disagree:

1. They disagree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
   
2. Democratic party groupism (40%)
3. Liberal guilt.
4. Political laziness & issue crossover.

Romney is too perfect?

Reasons to agree

1. Romney doesn't smoke.
2. Romney doesn't drink.
3. Ann Romney says Mitt has never raised his voice.
4. People vote for candidates who are like them. They don't want their candidates to be too good, to smart, too handsome, too competent. They want them to suffer, because we live in an Opera world where we love to bask in each other's misery. If you don't have misery for the public to bask in, they don't care about you. That don't want to watch smart people who have overcome their life's problems, because that will make them feel bad about themselves.

Reasons to disagree

1. "Too perfect" for what? It doesn't even make any sense.
2. Romney doesn't smoke? Barak is the only person who does smoke? Are your really saying Romney not smoking makes him too perfect? Are you stupid?
3. Romney doesn't drink? I bet brown back doesn't drink either? What is the big deal? Did the founding father's say you have to drink in order to be president? I know bush used to have a problem with alcohol, but I don't think he drinks any more. Did not drinking cause bush to be a bad president? People say some of the stupidest things.
4. People say that because Ann Romney says Mitt has never raised his voice, that he is somehow too perfect to be president. I don't really think any real people think this. I think it is a democrat reporter that doesn't like Mitt, who's ex-wife hates his guts, who is jealous of Romney, and is trying to make others jealous.
5. We are tired of folksy presidents who don't talk any better than we do. We are tired of nice incompetent people with a good heart. We want someone different who can tear Washington apart and put it back together right.