The demolition of a 1931 law would make building much cheaper

“You really ought to give Iowa a try. Provided you are contrary.” construction money especially coveted and Davis-Bacon passed with the support of the American Federation of Labor. The congressional debate that preceded enactment was replete with references to “unattached migratory workmen,” “itinerant labor,” “cheap, imported labor,” “cheap bootleg labor” and “labor lured from distant places” for “competition with white labor throughout the country.”

Passage of Davis-Bacon brought out the drollery in Rep. William Upshaw, a Georgia Democrat. He said he hoped his Northern colleagues in Congress would permit a Southerner to smile about “your reaction to that real problem you are confronted with in any community with a superabundance or large aggregation of Negro labor.”

In 1931, the unemployment rate of blacks was approximately the same as the rate for the general population. Davis-Bacon is one reason the rate for blacks began to deviate adversely. In 1932, generally there were about 3,500 workers building what became Hoover Dam. Never more than 30 were black.

In 1993, with Congress stoutly opposed to taking anything from something as powerful as organized labor, opponents of Davis-Bacon turned to the judiciary. A lawsuit on behalf of some minority contractors challenged the law’s constitutionality, arguing that it burdened the exercise of a fundamental civil right — the right to earn a living. And that it had a disparate impact on minority workers and small minority-owned construction businesses. The suit languished in court for almost a decade before the plaintiffs lost, victims of excessive judicial deference to the legislature.

In 1992, to expedite cleanup after Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki, President George H.W. Bush suspended portions of DavisBacon in South Florida, coastal Louisiana and Hawaii. Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, promptly reversed Bush’s policy.

A 2011 Heritage Foundation study estimated that Davis-Bacon would add almost $11 billion to that year’s construction costs. That sum will be eclipsed when — if — bold talk about making America’s infrastructure great again is translated into spending. Then we build up the national debt while purchasing less infrastructure than the appropriated sums should purchase.

Davis-Bacon is rent-seeking, the use of political power to supplant the market as the allocator of opportunity and wealth. Rent-seeking is lucrative, which is why there is so much of it, even when its pedigree is repulsive. E-mail George F. Will at georgewill@washpost.com.