From the Economist:
Unions spent hundreds of millions of dollars on electing Democrats in 2008, and provided an army of campaign volunteers. They expect something back, and Mr Obama is keen to oblige—up to a point. Union leaders ... are regular guests at the White House. Mr Obama has revoked some Bush-era executive orders that unions hate and issued a few they adore. He has appointed union insiders to top jobs, allowed Congress to add “buy American” provisions to the stimulus bill, risked a trade war with China to please tyre-workers, let other trade deals wither and brazenly favoured unions when bailing out car firms.
But his biggest favour has been green, foldable and borrowed. For example, he encourages the use of “Project Labour Agreements” on big federal construction projects, whereby contractors must recruit through a union hiring hall. Such agreements inflate costs by 12-18%, according to David Tuerck of Suffolk University, and were banned under Mr Bush. Even where PLAs are not in force, federal contractors are obliged to pay “prevailing” wages. That actually means something close to the union rates, which is nice for the workers in question but means that taxpayers get fewer roads and schools for their money.
Replace the word "union" with "oil companies" and "Obama" with "Bush" and this story would be much bigger news:
"Oil companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on electing Republicans in 2000, and provided an army of campaign volunteers. They expect something back, and Mr Bush is keen to oblige—up to a point. Oil company leaders ... are regular guests at the White House. Mr Bush has revoked some Clinton-era executive orders that oil companies hate and issued a few they adore. He has appointed oil company insiders to top jobs... and brazenly favoured oil companies when bailing out ... firms."
You get the idea.
Comments