RSSObama’s Government Still Mucking Things Up
J.J. Jackson | December 27, 2009
Liberals like President Barack Obama just do not get that they are wrong. That is why they keep banging their heads against the same brick walls over and over. When the people of a nation allow this to continue it eventually destroys the nation itself. Countries that have embraced liberalism have always failed. Some have taken longer than others and some have continued to hang on as the tyrants that run them have been able to kill or imprison enough rational people to make that sad reality continue.
One of the greatest failings of liberalism is that they don’t want people to just get a job done. Oh no. They want them to get the job done their way.
“Their way” means jumping through all sorts of hoops that have no real bearing to whether or not the job is done right, but rather hoops added by special interests who want to make sure they get their share of government cash being doled out.
When the government bids a project, for example, the four things it should care about are 1) Will the job be done, 2) Will the job done correctly to specifications, 3) Will it be done on time and 4) Will it be done on budget. That’s it. If the government has an office building that needs to be refurbished, for example, what really matters is that once the work is done that the people in that building can go about their daily work. Whether or not that work is constitutional or not is another whole can of worms.
But when it came time to fix up the Lafayette Building the government wanted to add other constraints to the job. No longer were they just worried with whether or not the building could do what it needed to do once the job was completed but they also had to have standards and union labor requirements added.
It’s been more than a decade since a federal project required bids that include union representation of workers, known as a “project labor agreement” or PLA, and a $100 million project to modernize the 12-story Lafayette Building that houses federal agencies is highlighting the kinks that need to be worked out.
The General Services Administration (GSA), for example, first called for PLAs to win bids to rehabilitate the Washington office complex, but earlier this month backtracked, saying the solicitation was in error and it would instead ask contractors to submit two bids, one with a PLA and one without – a highly unusual and costly requirement.
“It’s crazy to try to do that. … It is just pure confusion on their part,” said Brett McMahon, vice president of business development for Miller & Long Co. Inc., the country’s largest concrete subcontractor and the largest employer of construction workers in the Mid-Atlantic region.
He estimated that a general contractor would spend more than $100,000 putting together a single bid for a job of that size and submitting dual bids would increase the cost by about $75,000.
GSA officials said the dual bids were part of its effort to comply with Mr. Obama’s order to use PLAs and a way for the agency to gauge the cost of using PLAs. The Lafayette Building modernization is one of 10 pilot projects with solicitations for bids under way that require the dual pricing, officials said.
“As part of our ongoing outreach, GSA has received feedback from bidders that this process has not caused a significant increase in workload or cost in preparing a proposal,” the GSA said in a written statement issued in response to questions by The Washington Times.
This is a prime example of how detached from reality the GSA is. The requirement for dual pricing, “has not caused a significant increase in workload or cost in preparing a proposal?” Dumber than rocks, that is what these people are. I can speak from experience as an Engineer that ANY TIME the customer requires multiple proposals the increase in our up front cost is significant. I can think of one current project where for the better part of two years we had to actually furnish THREE separate proposals for one job; one to the company and one each to two different mill suppliers who would incorporate our equipment. Each week on my time sheet is a testament to the hours spent working on each and believe me you, there was a lot of extra hours there as one quote required one thing, another something different and the third yet other things.
Please, don’t try to run this crap past me. Anyone who has done proposal work knows that it is utter bull shit what you are saying.
Who cares if the guys and gals are union or not? What you should care about is the four things I talked about previously. Being in a union does not make you smarter and better at doing something. In fact, based on my experience working with many union folk over the years, it make you more cynical and more interested in when your next coffee break is. Note to union guys and gals I DID NOT say that that all union people were like this, so spare me the outraged emails. I said clearly that it makes people MORE likely to act like this.
For too many years I have seen hard working go-getter types beat down by the union mentality of, “stop working so hard – you are making the rest of us look bad.” What the government should care about is getting the job done and done right with a keen eye on how many tax payer dollars they are spending. Whether or not the labor is union or not should be a moot point.
Contributor's website: http://www.libertyreborn.com
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