Recently, Indiana Gov. Joseph Kernan canceled a $15 million contract with a firm in India for processing state unemployment claims. The next highest bidder was a U.S. firm that would have charged $23 million. Because of this potential 50 percent price increase, there would have been $8 million fewer state dollars for schools, hospitals, law enforcement, etc. And the benefit to Indiana would have been ... what?

He would mention that! Of course, now that the contract's cancelled, Indiana - a state with a budget deficit that is as of the latest figures about 70% of California's when expressed in per capita terms - is now busily preparing "fairer" (read: more protectionist) rules for state contracting.

Meanwhile, the city of Indianapolis has decreed that it will negotiate Project Labor Agreements (PLA's) for all future city projects. A PLA requires the city to pay contractors "prevailing fair wages" (read: union wages) on the project on which a PLA is in force. Nonunion contractors of course don't have the means to pay those wages, so PLA's effectively limit the pool of available contractors to union firms - and cost taxpayers far more money than the project would otherwise cost.

And so it goes...