Tim Hunt blows up prevailing wage and proponents

I blogged on the original story yesterday...

Today, a wonderful letter from my campaign buddy, Tim Hunt, in the C-J...

Metro Councilmen Jim King and Rick Blackwell's feeble attempts to defend their so-called prevailing wage ordinance by saying that they do not cost taxpayers any additional dollars are nothing more than a smoke screen.

Let's be clear on what these types of laws do: They're governmentally enforced price-fixing conspiracies. On construction projects, these laws kick in and forbid construction firms from competing on labor price, which is set at the "prevailing wage," which is the union scale, not the local common wages paid by over 80 percent of the companies in the region.

The sole purpose of "prevailing wage" laws when they were passed decades ago was to protect unionized construction firms against competition from more efficient and productive non-union firms. Perhaps the defining characteristic of union construction is its inefficiency...

Prevailing wage laws are special-interest legislation pure and simple, squeezing extra money out of a large uninformed group (taxpayers) and funneling it to a small but well organized and politically influential group (union trades)....

And then, this ZINGER to wrap up:

Ask King why he does not use a "prevailing wage" requirement on his own bank construction projects. I will tell you why. It simply costs more. What's good for the City should be good for his own bank [account].