The Associated Builders and Contractors’ national chairman was not impressed with President Barack Obama’s Jan. 24 State of the Union address.

Eric Regelin, president of Granix LLC in Ellicott City, Md., said in a statement that the speech offered little more than already failed ideas.

“In his speech, the president said ‘We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share,’ ” Regelin said. “Yet one of his first official acts when he took office was to sign an executive order on project-labor agreements that discriminates against the 87 percent of the nation’s construction work force that chooses not to belong to a labor union.”

The ABC opposes mandatory union membership and generally supports Republican candidates and policies.

“It is not clear at this point what President Obama meant when he spoke of removing red tape from construction projects, but any sincere effort to do so must involve the elimination of government-mandated project-labor agreements and Davis-Bacon wage requirements on taxpayer-funded construction projects,” Regelin said.

He also criticized Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on the nation’s highest income individuals.

  “The president’s insistence on a so-called ‘millionaire’s tax’ to fund his various priorities will expose the 80 percent of construction firms that are taxed at the individual rate to a significant tax increase,” Regelin said. “This does not represent a ‘fair share’ that will help the economy and create jobs, but rather the president’s continued use of the nation’s job creators as his personal piggy bank.