You can't make any generalization about all "contractors", Dickey... You have two basic models: Fat-cat corporate buildersw like Til Hazel in NoVa and small custom builders like me... And, yeah, just like everywhere else, the corporate guys ain't exactly my buddies... They cheat... The use their muscle to beat on the independents and the playing field isn't level in the building industry...

I'll give you an example... I Have had 3 exterior double door with transoms ordered from a certain building supply house in Harrisonburg now for over 2 months... When I call, I'm told that the "factory" got in a big order for 1100 doors from a corporate fat-cat... When I ask when the 1100 door order came in I get the "Well, ahhhh, geeeze, man, you know how it is, blah, blah, blah" BS...

See, "Boss Hog" ain't happy just throwing 'round his weight to rig the game with rules that hurt the poor but also the middle class...
This is the point I've made over and over... If the middle class is gettin' squeezed you can bet that the poor, whyo had a lot less in the way of resources, are gettin' a major ***trickle-down-squeeze***...

Now, you ask what I would do???

Well, first of all, a guarenteed "national minimum income" for anyone who wants to work that is higher than the poverty threshold, which, BTW, would be revisted based on real cost of living differences from one region to another... I would finance this by rollin' back the Bush tax cuts for the upper 1%, creating a value added tax for anything corporate America produces in foriegbn sweat-shops and close the $100B off-shore tax shelters that only the upper 1% benefit from...

That's just for starters...

Secondly, a publicly finaced ***single payer*** sliding scale national health insurance program similar to Medicaid paid for from income taxes, which would rise for everyone but not to the extent that would not reduce any families after-health-insurance net income that is less than $100,000 a year...

(Oh, but Bobert, then you are going to take capital away from the rich and then they won't have the $$$ to build factories to hire everyone else...)

BS, right now the only factories that are being built by "Boss Hog" are in Idia or Pakistan... They have no interst in investing in America other than to make junk loans to the working class... That isn't investment... That is usary... An immoral, to boot...

Gotta go fior now...

Bobert