The Mother of All Big Dig Boondoggles
Obama’s $50 Billion Union Infrastructure Boondoggle
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
President Obama calls his latest attempt to revive the economy a “Plan to Renew and Expand America’s Roads, Railways and Runways.” I’m calling it “The Mother of all Big Dig Boondoggles.” Like the infamous “Big Dig” highway spending project in Boston, this latest White House infrastructure spending binge guarantees only two results: Taxpayers lose; unions win.
The plan would add at least $50 billion more to the nearly $230 billion already allocated in the original trillion-dollar stimulus law for infrastructure. Less than one-third of that infrastructure stimulus money has been spent, but the urgency to pile on has increased exponentially as the midterm elections approach and unemployment hovers near 10 percent. So, the president says he wants to “put people back to work” through a new “upfront investment” in surface transportation, airports and the air-traffic control system paid for by repealing tax incentives for the oil and gas industries — followed by massive, unpaid-for expenditures on pie-in-the-sky high-speed rail, “environmental sustainability” and “livability,” whatever that means.
Obama spoke emotionally at an AFL-CIO rally on Labor Day about unemployed construction workers. A “lot of those folks, they had lost their jobs in manufacturing and went into construction; now they’ve lost their jobs again,” he said. “It doesn’t do anybody any good when so many hardworking Americans have been idled for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America that needs rebuilding.”
But here’s the rub: Not all workers are equal in Obama’s eyes. And most of them will remain “idled” by the Democrats’ own design. The key is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees.
The blunt instrument used to give unions a leg up is the “project labor agreement (PLA),” which in theory sets reasonable pre-work terms and conditions — but in practice, requires contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control; to pay inflated, above-market wages and benefits; and to fork over dues money and pension funding to corrupt, cash-starved labor organizations. These anti-competitive agreements undermine a fair bidding process on projects that locked-out, nonunion laborers are funding with their own tax dollars. And these PLAs benefit the privileged few at the expense of the vast majority: In the construction industry, 85 percent of the workforce is nonunion by choice.
We don’t need to theorize about how this shakedown works in the real world. Boston’s notorious Big Dig was a union-only construction project thanks to a Massachusetts government-mandated PLA. The original $2.8 billion price tag for the project skyrocketed to $22 billion in state and federal taxpayer subsidies thanks in no small part to ballooning labor costs. In February, the Bay State’s Beacon Hill Institute found that PLAs added 12 percent to 18 percent to school construction costs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In Washington, D.C., the Department of Veterans Affairs commissioned an independent study showing that PLAs would increase hospital construction costs by as much as 9 percent in some markets.
In short, Obama’s new Union Infrastructure Rescue Plan is a political favoritism scheme that raises the cost of doing business and bars tens of thousands of skilled, nonunion laborers who choose to run open shops from securing work. In the name of patching up America’s highways and byways, Mr. Fix It would create another gaping fiscal sinkhole to appease his special interest donors. Recovery Summer turns to Union Payback Fall.
***
Related reads:
Obama administration kicking construction when it’s down
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
Who’s funding Brett Kimberlin?
May 25, 2012 01:52 PM by Michelle Malkin
19 CommentsObama’s Land of the LOST
May 25, 2012 01:42 PM by Michelle Malkin
29 CommentsObama’s latest campaign angle: I’ve been saving America from wild Republican debts
May 24, 2012 04:33 PM by Doug Powers
48 Comments
Senate finally passes a budget approves bill striking word ‘lunatic’ from federal law
May 24, 2012 11:22 AM by Doug Powers
193 CommentsStammertime: Jay Carney asked if Chicago protests have soured Obama’s support for OWS
May 23, 2012 07:44 PM by Doug Powers
54 Comments
S.E. Cupp, Hustler, and the four stages of conservative female abuse
May 23, 2012 02:13 PM by Michelle Malkin
142 CommentsPig Maher’s boy Bill Burton mocks my support of Hatch challenger Dan Liljenquist
May 23, 2012 11:37 AM by Michelle Malkin
32 CommentsFree speech blogburst: Show solidarity for targeted conservative bloggers; Update: It’s Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day; Donation fund for targets
May 23, 2012 05:59 AM by Michelle Malkin
110 Comments
Jaczko the Jerk: Harry Reid’s sexist crony gets the boot
May 23, 2012 05:15 AM by Michelle Malkin
31 Comments
Babalu Blog
» U.S. Manned Space Flight in The 21st CenturyVillainous Company
» Must Read Post of the Day. Possibly, the YearRedstate
» Kimberlin’s Associates Caught on Tape?Redstate
» Civility Fails For A Reason
“followed by massive, unpaid-for expenditures on pie-in-the-sky high-speed rail, “environmental sustainability” and “livability,” whatever that means.”
High Speed Rail, I am assuming it would be a MagLev type and memo to Zippy – That requires electricity and non-interrupted at that. What are you going to use there fearless leader? Wind and Solar I bet is the mantra but hey Zippy those 2 items are affected by the Dark as well as calm days with no wind – So Zippy how are you going to power this pie in the sky?
You want livability? How about a little economic sustainability?
This sounds more like FDR’s WPA plan back in the 30′s to stop the recession. It didn’t work then and will not work now. The only thing this community organizer knows is to throw money at the problem and wait for it to go away.
It’s just more of the same, float a plan to spend huge amounts of money on the wrong things and then give a sermon-like speech in front of the cameras with designated cheerers and clappers behind you so that you project the image that everyone is happy and agrees with you. The incredible scam goes on. Also, don’t forget to stir up pity for yourself with phrases in your speech like “they talk about me like a dog” and “if I say the sky is blue, they say NO, if I say the fish swim in the sea, they say NO “.
This delusional moron is just digging a bigger hole. That is a shovel-ready job I can get behind!!
Now that the economy is finally front and center, I am hoping our very short-memory citizens will not forget about all the other issues that this administration is screwing with…
Immigration/war against AZ and border insecurity
The Mosque
BP Oil Spill “response”
Oil drilling moratorium
Obamacare disaster
Corruption, lies, deceit
Trashing the Constitution
Bad-mouthing America to our enemies
Not showing up for the 9-11 memorial ceremony, 2nd year.
Foreign policy mistakes, insulting our allies and embracing our enemies
The list goes on and on!! Please don’t let the American People forget these issues. They all add up to TREASON.
As for this latest “idea” from Teh One…stupid, repetitive, untenable, naive, deliberately misleading. Need I go on? He is desparate and the pundits who go on TV and try to spin are looking totally ridiculous. If I were them, I would run and hide, not appear on TV. They have NO defense for what is happening to this country.
That’s the unions’ reason for being. And how they’ve committed murder/suicide against manufacturing in America.
The need for unions dried up with the last sweat-shop.
The unions will be the death of America if we let them. They are corrupt, violent, and powerful. We are fighting pure evil and only God can save us. Pray.
I don’t mind unions, support them in fact as part of the right of association (which is something you don’t see much of anymore).
I just insist that they should be held to the EXACT same laws as others in society, including businesses.
As things now stand, they are given special treatment in any number of areas, and are historically given a free ride when it comes to criminal behavior.
By-in-large, they are dinosaurs kept alive by special law and corruption.
LET ME GET A BACKHOE AND HELP YOU A LITTLE BIT WITH THAT.
But that’s only because the card check people haven’t been able to “make them an offer they can’t refuse” yet.
Either obama truly believes in “wind and solar power” as the answer to everything, in which case he is the most stupid person on Earth… Or, he is intentionally destroying the economy under the name of environmentalism and Socialism, in which case, he is the most evil person on Earth.
I really wish they would stop calling these things “investments”. In the real world, investments are made by those who take the risks. Risk assessment is performed BEFORE any money is put up and those who stand to profit are the ones who take the risks.
In government, politicians steal the money up front and then carve up the spoil among their cronies. If there is any residual benefit to the taxpayers who bear the financial burden and the associated economic risks, it is an accident.
These are not “investments”.
Well Phil, politicians think they are investments in getting themselves re-elected. I give a trillion to the construction and gubmint workers union, and a trillion to the teachers unions, and a few hundred billion to other assorted democrat voting blocks, like ACORN, and I can get out my base with some WAM to buy the dead votes I need to be re-elected. And lest we forget, republicansdid this also, but to a far lesser and less egregious amount when they had total power.
Road projects, bridge repairs, walking/bike paths, and any other “shovel” ready project should have been addressed in the first stiumulus bill rather than wasted on the liberals social programs that can’t get passed via legislation because no one wants them not to mention they do not stimulate the economy.
Now that the libs have spent and are spending the first stiumulus on all of the candy they wanted, now they’re ready for some meat and vegetables. After squandering tax dollars, now they speak of curbing our spending. What hypocrites.
And, since the majority of citizens are not union members, no stipulations that the work go toward unions should ever be a part of any stimulus bill. Talk about discrimination.
In my hometown, it takes about 9 months to finish an intersection. Often, when passing a construction site, I will see one guy digging a ditch and 3 or more guys standing around talking. The next day, the site will be empty with no work being done.
I see entire condos consisting of 25 stories and 500 units being built in about the same amount of time.
Why does the government get such poor efficiency out of their projects? Why isn’t there somebody who pushes these road construction companies to perform like the ones that build private housing units?
Feed your friends so they can finance you in the electoral process, while starving others to force them to join your friends so they can pay you too.
What a perfectly cold-blooded scheme to ensure your personal power is preserved.
I live in MA and travel through Boston quite often. The 15 billion Big Dig solved nothing! The morning commute from North or South is still a mess. I just rode my motorcycle through the tunnel on Labor Day. I tell you it’s the worst 15 billion dollar roller coaster POS ride you will ever take.
Rogue: I left Boston just as the Big Dig was getting underway. There was a controversy going on at the time that the politicians were planning to commandeer one of the tunnels or a lane for their own use. Did that ever happen?
By my guess the only one in America who pretends the slush fund is not a slush fund is Obummer. And likely the only one who pretends it will actually do anything except elect Democrats is also Obummer,
Oh, yes, this will save the economy, and anyone will know it will increase the national debt in the process. Brilliant, and just in time to enrage more conservatives before the November election! Vote these bums out, please.
This move should give a few union workers a few temp jobs, then they’ll join us in the bread lines.
Hey, I’ll be damned if Ogdenville and North Haverbrook have monorails and I can’t.
I believe that the use of that phony, dishonest term began during the administrations of the disgusting Bill Clinton.
The problem is not so much that we should spend money on infrastructure, it’s that the people in DC will waste it. They all love to spend other people’s money. They get credit for giving away money without the pain of having had to earn it.
I love the idea of high speed rail. We should be embarrassed at how far behind technologically we are.
But the people in DC don’t want to revolutionize anything in transportation, they just want to spend other peoples’ money.
A revolutionary ‘high speed rail’ idea would be something like a maglev device that runs above the current interstate highway system. Instead of having massive trains, you use individual ‘pod-like’ platforms that move along the maglev railway. What is on the platforms you ask? Why your automobile. That’s right, you drive to a location and get your car tires strapped to a maglev platform to wisk you along the highway system at 500 mph to a destination down the highway. . . for a fee.
The government will never create something useful. Orville and Wilbur Wright didn’t work for the government.
***
I don’t agree that 85 percent of construction workers are non-union by choice. I think it is Economics 101 again–companies with lower labor costs can do the job cheaper–they can fire lazy workers if needed. And in open competition will get more work.
***
It was obvious who our Secretary of (union!) Labor Hilda Solis works for in her warmup for Comrade Obama’s (PBUH) Milwaukee speech. She is too heavy to put on a cheerleaders outfit–but her speech clearly was in favor of unionized workers. She works for them–another socialist special interest group.
***
I was in Boston a few years ago–it felt good to get out of the Big Dig tunnel alive where the cement ceiling panel had fallen and killed a motorist. Shoddy design or poor construction?
***
John Bibb
***
If you really want a text book example of how corrupt and brain dead these big government boondoggles can be, research the construction of Boston’s central artery. The main problem the Big Dig addressed was the mess created by the central artery project that got modified into nonsense as the project proceeded. For example, how many exit ramps were built that went nowhere again? How many contractors got rich and then declared bankruptcy?
The government does very little well. The bigger these projects are, the more waste and corruption and the worse the end result.
Once again, unaccountable malfeasance on a massive scale. Amazing hubris on the part of a little community organizer. Can we have a motion to “defund” this kangaroo government?
“Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.” ‘nuf said. I do NOT want to repeat this terrible mistake again. Vote the bums out – !si se puede!
I don’t believe so, I haven’t seen it, I believe there was too much heat for a secret passage from Beacon Hill.
I make that drive north everyday and it saved roughly 15 minutes drive time on my commute, and that included using the zipper (2+ commuter) lane. What I was most shocked about, as RC said, was the road surface from opening day rode like a twenty-year old truck route of patchwork concrete and blacktop. Either there was no money in the budget to do it right, or that’s the best a union laid surface will get – or both.
The Ted Williams tunnel, going from just south of Boston to the airport, was once just available for taxi and limo traffic – guess who was in the limos. Us peons could use it on the weekends (thanks you, may I have another). It’s open to all traffic now, since the project is complete.
A rotary was built near me. It took 18 months to build the thing. When it was done, the workers returned to rip up the center of the circle, removing the pavers and installing asphalt. Then the asphalt was removed and replaced with stamped concrete. It seems to me that road crews have no problem creating work to stay employed.
Aren’t these union folks the same guys who hired non-union crews to build their own office buildings because it was less expensive? We need a President who wants the taxpayers “to get the most bang for the buck” rather than “to get banged.”
Hope is not a plan; not all change is good. WE are the civilian national security force! Anti-trust and RICO laws need to be enforced against labor unions and the Democratick Party. The resistance is here; the resistance is now. RESIST!!!!!!!!!!!
ECS
and how many of them have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants?
How do we get our money back from these “investments”?? Doesn’t an investment imply someone makes money?
These “shovel ready” projects are a pain in the tush because they stop the flow of traffic and are nothing but “make work” for public employees. Enough!!! Stop the spending.
You must do this at the local level. Contact YOUR City officials and tell them NO to more stimulus boondoggles. Put the pressure on and keep them from accepting the money—or have the State take the money and BANK it like the banks did–God knows all but 3 of the 50 are close to bankruptcy!!!
The only “shovel ready” projects this administration has is the crap that the shovel on the masses each and everyday.
No way – haven’t you ever heard of sails? And not some big balloony spinaker – they will all be shaped like the traditional arab dhow. (sp?)
Previous Honolulu mayor took one lane off a one way street and made it go the other way so he wouldn’t have to go around the block to get on the freeway. Yeah, you have to come out of City Hall to use that lane…
Garbage truck drivers in Honolulu work as little as three hours a day. No, they don’t get paid by the hour apparently.
AlohaGuy said:
And our conductor will be Wind Wagon Smith lol
Why bother to invest in all these roads anyway when the lefties don’t want us to drive. They want to make gas too expensive, give us cars we don’t want at a price we won’t want to pay……and for what? Dopey-bho might as well hand the unions the money and skip the whole road construction thing. That way he could appease all the environ-nuts too. No need to build all those turtle bridges if we just don’t build the roads.
In that train of thought, the investment in public works is for the benefit of govenrment union workers, friends of the lefties who will get richer from the public works contracts that come their way, and for all the leftist elites who will be want to be using the nicely paved roads and runways themselves….certainly not for we peons.
Errah first project is that all federal buildings are getting larger toilets now so they can flush our money down without much problem.
Errah
along with that thought they could start a UAW jobs program and restore all the cash for clunkers vehicles before they go to the crusher.
How much you wanna bet those roads will be for all our trucker friends from south of the border to drive through to Canada?
How many more times can they tear up and rebuild roads?
Most construction workers here in Maine are not union members. That means most of the workers would come up from Mass.
Not to mention the traffic problems.
Not very green of you Barry.
Then what do you do after the roads are given yet another layer of pavement?
That only lasts so long.
These are not long term jobs.
@23
High-speed rail (wheel on rail, maglev)… even as much as I’m in favor of rail as a transportation option… is such a non-option here in the U.S.
A report that independently evaluates California’s High Speed Rail proposal absolutely savages the assumptions and conclusions (ridership, ROI, capital costs, PHYSICAL constructability, greenhouse gas reductions) made by the CA agency/group. He__, the agency’s own plans won’t support the overall transit time (LA-SF) that’s MANDATED in the legislation that authorized the proposal to move forward for initial financing.
Even the head of the CA board responsible for the project, the guy who was the head of San Diego’s transit agency for the SD LRT at the earliest days, has said that the projections are a scam.
Some of the porkulous money that is being spent on the local airport, Portland International Jetport, (International because flights go to Canada).
Almost all of the workers and companies have been brought up from Mass. because of the union requirements.
So, pork money comes to Maine but does nothing for workers in Maine.
Even the porkulous is full of spin.
Just like Sir Golfsalot and his administration.
From E.O. 13502:
Well, …only if they’re unionized.
– MD