Corrected: Bush allows contractors to pay lower wages in hurricane affected areas

[pegkerr]

Here is the proclamation. This isn't the minimum wage, as I thought initially, but wages governed by the Davis-Bacon wage determination. See article explaining here and here.

You know what this means, don't you? More profits for Halliburton!

Oh yes, and you saw that gasoline emission standards are being relaxed, too.

What's next? Go ahead, speculate. How far will he go?

Comments

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

Somebody needs to catch him with his pants down. Literally, with his dick in someone's mouth other than his wife's. Because that's all *THAT* party considers as a moral lapse.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

With live camera feed to the Internet.

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

o_O so, even the people who find jobs & are working in the aftermath, won't necessarily be living above subsistence level?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Because, you know, it's not like people who have lost everything need money.

And I wouldn't mind about the emissions suspension, except I wonder who it's supposed to benefit? As far as I can tell, the people who had cars are gone, and surely passing their annual safety inspection is not going to be their /biggest/ worry when they get back? The only sense I can make of this is that it's not about the vehicles of residents, it's about the vehicles of rescue/recovery people. And again, if I thought that this was somehow going to make it easier for Jane Helpful-Person to get down there and help out, I'd be cheering, but Jane Helpful-Person has been turned away in no uncertain terms. And it can't be to enable erzatz evacuation vehicles for the same reason. So what we're talking about, I can only deduce, is that Bush is making dispensations for the government-agency vehicles not to have to meet safety specs.

Why? Why do governmental vehicles not meet specs? And why was this worth anybody's time, with so much else that still needs to be addressed? And - this is my big question - when do you suppose the regulations will be restored?

[channe.livejournal.com]

I can't comment. I'm about to vomit, kthanksbye.

[lostbutton.livejournal.com]

I heard that on the radio this morning, but couldn't find anything on-line.

Just how are people going to be able to rebuild and have the economy in the area go back to normal if they can't make even minimum wage from any job that's involved with the rebuilding? (which I would imagine would be a fair number of the jobs available when they do start recontstruction)

Minimum wage isn't even considered "Living Wage". Below minimum wage is just criminal.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

What. the hell.

Sigh. I should stop being surprised by things.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Internment camps in Oklahoma.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

This story is what you're talking about, right?

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Yes, although given the local news reports, I'm not sure of the whole extent of the story, but it does sound like they were planning on placing at least some constraints on their freedom, even if they're not in practice as extensive as what Valhall's mother was told, and that's enough to irk me and make me very, very uncomfortable. However, it sounds like the whole thing there is on hold.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think what he suspended was the requirement that the contracts be paid at the prevailing way, not the minimum wage as such.

Still majorly sucky.

Especially since you get what you pay for.

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

Yeah. This would be the Davis-Bacon Wage Determinations which monitors wages in construction fields on a regional basis, so that of contractors working on Federal projects can pay workers the prevailing wage in their field for their area.

The normal minimum wage (a pitiful $5.15 an hour in most of the country) is not effected here, I don't think.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I have corrected the original entry.

You know what this means, don't you? More profits for Halliburton! Hurrah!

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

That was exactly my reaction. Why haven't, and why aren't, the Dems screaming for an investigation of Halliburton?

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I don't think that proclamation says people can be paid less than the federal minimum wage. I think it says they can be paid less then the minimum for each specific job as specified by what the Secretary of Labor determines to be the prevailing wage for that particular job. Those are two very different things. I'm not sure how evil relaxing that standard really is. I know that that partulcar rule ends up causing employees of companies with gov't contracts to get paid much better than other people doing the same jobs in some cases. It also protects them from getting paid much less in other cases though. Totally dispensing with a regulation that presumably has a reason for existing does seem questionable to me.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

It's good to have the clarification, but yes, an explanation would be welcome. As with the emissions, I come back to the basic question: Qui bonum? Who benefits? If this will make it possible for businesses to continue to operate instead of closing altogether, it may benefit the residents. If it makes it possible for governmental agencies to hire people to do the restoration work necessary, instead of declaring that the restoration is impossible and not hiring anyone or fixing anything, it may be good.

But it's the kind of thing that seems very susceptible to abuse, and which, like so much of what the federal government does, has the look of something which will benefit the people who already have money at the expense of those who don't.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Let's just say that if Bush does it, I'm suspicious.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Let's just say that if Bush does it, I'm suspicious.

Oh, I'm with you on that. But I like to be able to defend myself to people who don't have this knee-jerk reflex, and so details and reasons come in handy.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I have corrected the entry, thanks.

You know what this means, don't you? More profits for Halliburton! Hurrah!

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Of course. Doesn't everything Bush does lead to more profits for Haliburton?

IN other disgusting hurricane-related news, did you hear that Sen. Rick Santorum supposedly said that people who didn't evacuate should be punished for not doing so? I need to move to another state so that that man can't claim to represent me.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Fined, specifically.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Holy shit (sorry Peg, can't express that anyother way)

Does any one have a link to that? I need to pass that on to others.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Here (same story filed here).

[phoenixw.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Because it's not like manual laborers need MONEY or anything. Excuse me while I foam at the mouth. I can see that my mood is going to be "enraged" for the foreseeable future.

Welcome to the new America. The "kinder, gentler" America. The America in which the rich get richer and the poor suck it up.

I want to know when people are going to wake up and act on their own best interests for a change.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

What's next? Go ahead, speculate. How far will he go?

Erm, I'm afraid to speculate in case anyone in the administration saw it and got ideas. ;) He reminds me of a boy in my daughter's class who was told very specifically by the science teacher, when they were using catapults, NOT to use them to embed things in the ceiling of the classroom. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she saw that the wheels were turning in this kid's head, that she'd given him ideas...

I used to think that his dad was scarier because he actually had half a brain; now I see that Dubya's lack of brain AND lack of scruples is far more dangerous. I honestly think this administration is far scarier than terrorists at this point and worry far more about the havoc they are wreaking on the country.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I personally feel like I'm going to implode. Like I need to quit my job and do SOMETHING, get involved full time politically and live like a monk, with the primary goal of exposing what hasn't been exposed, and getting people to PAY ATTENTION and politicians to DO THEIR JOB and get this guy out of here.

How can those who grew up in the Nixon-era sit back and not be shocked at the lack of public outcry? Or rather watch public outcries being blatantly ignored?

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

How far will he go?

How low will he go?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I suggest that President Bush will next discover that there isn't enough fuel in Mississippi to gather the cotton harvest by mechanical means and will conscript refugees to help those farmers in exchange for room and board.