On Feb. 16, debate began in the Iowa House on the prevailing wage bill, House File 333. If passed, this bill would require all contractors in Iowa to pay at least the “prevailing wage” for public works projects. The prevailing wage would be determined on the first business day of July for each job classification, based on what is normally paid for similar projects in that area.

The idea, as Rick Olson, D-District 68, said, is “to [help] middle class families by rewarding hard work and those who play by the rules.” He said, “This bill will protect the jobs of local workers by stopping large corporations and construction companies who have in the past, driven down wages by using low-skill laborers and illegal immigrants.”

House Republicans cite the increased costs to the taxpayer as their opposition to the bill. As House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-District 35, said, “I guess we’re going to shoot the wounded and attack some of the disaster victims and punish property taxpayers.”

Former Iowa Governors Bob Ray and Terry Branstad said, “Because of the increased cost of public projects to taxpayers, nine states have repealed prevailing wage laws since the last state passed one.”

The vote on Friday fell one short of passing, with all House Republicans and five House Democrats voting against it. Fifty Democrats voted in favor of it. Rather than ending it there, Democrats decided to leave the voting machine open until Monday in hopes that some representatives would rethink their positions and change their votes.

This became the longest legislative day in the history of Iowa, lasting for four days.However, in the end it made no difference. Democrats were still one vote shy as of 1 p.m. on Feb. 19 when voting machines were closed.

This prevailing wage bill was the definition of the phrase, “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

In this case, Peter represents every taxpayer for the State of Iowa, and Paul represents construction and road workers for public works projects. This is not, as House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-District 28, said, about “[paying] Iowans good living wages.”

It’s about gaining political support from the ones to whom you’re handing out someone else’s money.The idea is that, because the money is paid indirectly through taxes rather than just stolen from one and given directly to another, by the time the next election rolls around most people will have forgotten where their money is going.

On the other hand, the ones who are receiving your stolen tax dollars in the form of a considerable raise probably won’t forget.

This bill is just one of the four labor priorities Democrats planned on pushing through. The others — according to a Feb. 19 Quad-City Times article — include ”[collecting] dues from non-members in a bargaining unit, [expanding] the list of items for which public worker unions can negotiate and [permitting] workers injured on the job to choose the doctors who will treat them.”

It seems our current Democratic Congress is only concerned with expanding the power of the labor unions that so generously support them. This is not the first time they’ve tried something like this either. Two years ago Democrats tried to push through the “fair share” law to force non-union employees of unionized firms to pay union dues.

Although the prevailing wage bill was estimated by the Iowa Association of Counties to increase project costs by 10 to 20 percent, the Iowa Democratic Party has — during this time of recession and budget cuts — decided to pander to special interests instead of attempting to get Iowa’s economy back on track.

And, as the four straight days of voting show, there’s very little they’re not willing to do to achieve their goals.

 — Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering and economics from De Witt.