The Shopping List as Policy Tool
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/sunday-review/the-shopping-list-as-policy-tool.html
WASHINGTON — THE federal government spends around $500 billion annually on goods and services. So when Uncle Sam throws his weight around, markets move. Historically, presidents have used this leverage to achieve policy goals that were politically difficult to accomplish through legislation. In 1941, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination by defense contractors after it became clear that federal legislation would be impossible because of the stranglehold that Southern Democrats had on Congress.
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In December, a congressional report found that the federal government did a relatively poor job preventing taxpayer money from going to contractors with labor violations. The report, written by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that tens of billions of dollars in contracts had gone in recent years to companies that were found to have violated federal safety and wage laws and paid millions in penalties. At least 18 federal contractors were among the recipients of the largest 100 penalties issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration between 2007 and 2012. The report called on the government to weigh a company’s safety and wage violations more closely as it awarded contracts.
In 2010, the Obama administration considered a plan that did just that. Tentatively named the High Road Procurement Policy, the plan would have disqualified many companies with labor or other violations and given an edge to companies with better levels of pay, health coverage or pensions. One in five American workers are employed by a company that contracts with the federal government. The plan was dropped after strong opposition from business leaders who described it as anti-competitive and an expensive gift to unions.
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Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said that an added difficulty was that many federal agencies did not reveal the addresses of their contractors’ overseas factories, which got in the way of independent oversight. By contrast, at least five states and more than 20 cities require garment companies to reveal the location of their domestic and overseas suppliers and to submit to audits if they want to compete for public contracts.
Emphasis mine.