Davis-Bacon has been a major burr in my butt for a long time. Making the taxpayer pay inflated labor costs for every construction project- every road, every sewer, every school, every courthouse - is insane, given the chronic budget deficits of state, local and federal governments. It is nothing buta subsidy for unions companies who couldn’t win a contract without it. If you want to fix our crumbling infrastructure, I would start by getting rid of Davis-Bacon.
In my younger days I was a mason and we did a lot of Boiler settings. I was top dog and made 14 a hour my helpers made 6 to 9 $ a hr. Occasionally we would get a state or municiple job, Prevailing wage was 27.00 Hr and 14.00 for helpers. Everyone wanted to work those jobs but in order to make money the owner needed us to work with no breaks ,eat on the run, and work double time and we were glad to do it. We were actually told to slow down by the union guys on the job because we made them look bad. Also sometimes we were forced to hire some of the guys from union Hall and they were useless except for one guy who was a good musician, I told him to just bring his guitar and play leave your tools home.