Republican Indiana House Assistant Majority Leader Ed Soliday (R) admitted during an April 24 forum that legislation passed in Indian to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law “hasn’t saved a penny.”

“We got rid of prevailing wage and so far it hasn’t saved a penny,” Soliday said in the video.  “Probably the people most upset with us repealing [prevailing] wage were the locals. Because the locals, quite frankly, like to pay local contractors and they like local contractors to go to the dentist in their own town.” 

Soliday also mocks the outrageous claims about savings made by right-wing organizations like Americans for Prosperity. “The exaggerations in those hearings that we were going save 22 percent,” Soliday says. “Well, total labor costs right now in road construction is about 22 percent, and I haven’t noticed anyone who’s going to work for free. [They claim] there’s some magic state out there that’s going to send all these workers into work for $10 an hour and it’s just not going to happen. There’s not 22 percent savings out there when the total cost of labor is 22 percent. It’s rhetoric.”

Soliday adds, “So far, I haven’t seen a dime of savings out of it.”