To the Editor:

After criticizing President Obama’s stimulus package which financed building and improving our highway, Rep Foxx is advocating for the creation of more highway construction jobs. Rep. Foxx criticized signs posted to identify the project failing to acknowledge those signs were created by a small business.

Sometime ago, Rep. Foxx introduced a bill that will spur the creation of more highway construction jobs by reforming the nation’s Highway Trust Fund. Of course her bill would eliminate the “Davis-Bacon” labor Act, sponsored by Republican Senator James J. Davis and Rep. Robert L. Bacon and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931, fueled by the Great Depression. Congress enacted the DBA to assure workers a fair wage, provide local contractors a fair opportunity to compete for local government contracts and to preserve its own ability to distribute employment and federal money equitable through public works projects.

Despite many attempts to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, like Rep. Foxx, the law has bi-partisan local support across the nation. The DBA was amended in 1935 to ensure that contractors bidding on public works projects would not lower wages in order to achieve a lower bid. The Act was modified again in 1964 to include fringe benefits in the calculation of prevailing wages and in 1994, the DBA was amended so that the construction, renovation or repair of buildings used by Head Start programs are also subject to the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act.

Another Republican from North Carolina, Rep. Sue Myrick, tried to repeal DBA outright. The Republican Party has long been trying to repeal the Davis Bacon Act on grounds that the regulations are outdated, expensive and bureaucratic. The Republican Party continues its attempts to kill Social Security and Medicare.

North Carolinians are often characterized as people who do not vote for what is in their best interest. Rep. Foxx does not have the best interest of her constituents at heart. America has been good for Rep. Foxx, but Rep. Foxx is not good for America!

M. D. Block

Warrensville