Bush's Social & Economic Blunder

By using the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act to remove federal restrictions of wages, more specifically requiring federal contracters to pay the prevailing wage in the region in which they are working, Bush has hurt the people and the economy of the Gulf Coast in order to help the contracters, including Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root. The use of this act strips workers of the main way in which they can be helped, in the rebuilding of their community. With contractors paying lower wages, there will also be a lower demand-side driven economic recovery in the area. Much of the money paid to the contractors that is not paid in wages or materials will leave the area. In order to help the economic recovery of the Gulf Coast, it would make sense to limit the amount of the money paid in contracts that leaves the affected area. However, Bush seems to be more driven by fealty to the contractors and an idealogical opposition to Keynesian economics. If he had the interests of the people living in the Gulf Coast, he would strenghten the regulation of contractors hired for rebuilding to make sure a large percentage of money paid in the rebuilding contracts stays in the local economy of the affected region. To not do this demonstrates his lack of concern for ordinary Americans.