Turning around Ohio by turning around your money just doesn’t work
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 By James NesbittThe Columbus Dispatch reports today on prevailing wage rules released by Governor Strickland yesterday:
Private construction projects that use even a small amount of public money, such as for brownfields cleanup or purchasing machinery and equipment, will be subject to Ohio’s prevailing-wage requirements under rules issued yesterday by the Strickland administration…Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said the guidelines are not new. They simply “apply the prevailing wage properly.”
Isn’t this a creative system? Rather than letting you spend your money in the way you see fit and at a level you deem valuable, Ohio tries to pull the Transported Man act with a twist. Rather than attempting to fool the audience into thinking that the money going in is the same as the money going out, it attempts to construe the opposite. But in reality, all Ohio does is take the money you would have spent efficiently from you, turns it right back around with strings attached (taking a cut for its bureaucrats in the process), and gives it back (to certain people with the right connections). The dispatch notes that prevailing wages “are usually closer to union-scale wages and typically higher than the market rate.” In other words, if you do get your money back (rather than your neighbor getting it), you are now required to spend your money inefficiently. There’s an innovative way to turn around the economy.
At least some members of government see some of the realities of this system:
“The fact of the matter is the new rules will drive up the cost of doing business in the state of Ohio and drive jobs out of the state,” said Karen Stivers, spokeswoman for House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering.
“President Harris believes this is absolutely the wrong time to follow this course,” spokeswoman Maggie Ostrowski said. “We should be doing everything we can to encourage economic development.”
Tags: prevailing wage
