The Daily Caller reports, “Rosa DeLauro says ‘High Road’ government contracting policy is coming“:

Democratic lawmakers seemingly confirmed this week that the White House is planning to roll out its “High Road” contracting policy in the near future. The proposal would seek to leverage federal contracting to change labor and wage standards for private sector companies bidding on federal contracts.

The High Road policy would give preference to bidders that pay workers a “living wage” and provide other benefits such as health insurance, pensions and paid sick days.

Supporters including labor unions and left-leaning think-tanks say many workers on federal contracts are paid poverty-level wages and cost the taxpayer more through food stamps and other public assistance. Business groups argue the program would hurt small businesses, increase the cost of federal contracting and heavily favor unionized companies bidding on contracts.

Taxpayer groups probably have an opinion, too, since it’s taxpayers who ultimately pay for the higher-cost federal projects.

The Daily Caller has been covering the high road issue more thoroughly than any other media outlet we’ve seen. Indeed, for a relatively recent Internet upstart, it seems to be breaking more news than other operations of its kind. Congrats.

Bret Jacobsen in Forbes.com, “Everyday Higher Prices,” a commentary on the “high road” federal contracting standards:

It’s just the latest effort to increase costs on taxpayer projects in the name of pushing more money to labor unions.

Reports this week of the new proposal are raising eyebrows. Though details are sketchy, here’s the general idea: The Obama administration is attempting to alter the scoring system currently used to evaluate government contractors and suppliers.

The new system would provide additional points for so-called “high road” employers who pay wages and benefits above minimum standards. (Note that the new requirement is not about providing quality above minimal standards; employers simply have to pay more.) Thus, competition in bidding becomes a tangled race to see who can charge the most to cover higher labor costs.

The costs of this favor to Big Labor would be borne by the taxpayers, paying the direct costs of more expensive contracts and indirect costs from inefficiency.

The recent report from the White House Task Force on the Middle Class foreshadowed this major change in federal contracting. From page 23, the section entitled “Responsible Federal Contracting.”

The Federal Government spends over half a trillion dollars a year on contracts for goods and services, generating employment for tens of millions of workers. However, there are inadequate controls on the records of firms who get these contracts and on the quality of the jobs these contracts create.Ignoring these factors has negative implications, not only for the workers on these contracts, but for the quality and efficiency of services rendered. For these reasons, the Task Force has participated in a review process to identify ways to reform the procurement process to increase the quality of both the services procured and the jobs created under Federal contracts.

The Task Force recognizes that contracts should not be awarded to irresponsible sources with unsatisfactory records of business ethics, including noncompliance with labor and employment, tax, fraud, and consumer protection laws. We also recognize that substandard wages and benefits can have negative impacts on employees’ productivity and stability, which in turn can reduce the quality of performance on Federal contracts.

We expect to produce shortly some new recommendations to bring these ideas into practice.

• Associated Press, “‘Living wage’ could be factor in govt contracts”
• New York Times, “Plan to Seek Use of US Contracts as a Wage Lever“
• Bloomberg, “Plan to Seek Use of US Contracts as a Wage Lever“