John McCarron recognizes that the union-scale prevailing wage requirement imposed by Illinois law on all projects that receive any state support makes it “difficult, if not impossible, to buy and rehab a bungalow or two-flat in a distressed neighborhood” (“Give this to Rauner and put people to work,” July 27). Imposition of that requirement increases the cost that the rehabbed bungalow would have to be priced beyond what the local free market will bear.
He refuses to recognize that a similar, though much more diffused, effect occurs when the prevailing wage standard is applied to “big public works such as expressways or schools.” By making these public works more expensive, the prevailing wage requirement costs the taxpayers more than they would otherwise have to pay. By paying more than the free market would cost, it essentially amounts to a legislatively forced income redistribution scheme that subsidizes a few at the expense of the many. It’s the union equivalent of crony capitalism or agricultural subsidies.
If, however, the prevailing union wage were not required, then taxpayer dollars could either be saved or deployed for additional necessary public works that, of course, would put more people to work. Either way, the state’s taxpayers win.
—Bob Foys, Chicago
