Everyone wins when we restrict bidding on municipal jobs, reader argues

From time to time, opposition to “restrictive bidding” on municipal construction rears its head. We wrote about this in September 2014, see here.

Here is a post from reader Big Jay, who loves the idea of strictly limiting who can bid on government projects (to certain unions, we presume, although he doesn’t come right out and say that)…

Restrictive bidding is the result of a holistic approach to the funding of economic drivers.

Looking only at bottom line cost ignores the wider economics behind, and derived from, public project funding.

If a jurisdiction wants to ensure that it maintains a healthy economy, restrictive bidding can help to accomplish that, by ensuring stronger infrastructures, built by better-paid (and therefore higher-skilled), workers, using higher-quality materials, and resulting in a much stronger velocity of money due to the disposable income available to these higher skilled workers.