Non-Obama Supporters Need Not Apply

As the WSJ notes, the presidential diktat barring non-union shops from federal contracts went live yesterday.

Only 15% of the nation's construction workers are unionized, so from now on the other 85% will have to forgo federal work for having exercised their right to not join a union. This is a raw display of political favoritism, and at the expense of an industry experiencing 27% unemployment. "This is nothing but a sop to the White House's big donors," says Brett McMahon, vice president at Miller & Long Concrete Construction, a nonunion contractor. "We've seen this so many times now, and how many times does it have the union label? Every time."

The Veterans study mirrors academic work showing that project labor agreements raise the costs of construction by 10% to 20%.

Obama still has that "laser like" focus on the federal deficit, I see...