Jasper, ...
I get and support subsidizing a US flagged fleet. ...
I'm not asking KP to change a thing about the way they recruit, teach, or charge Mids. I'm not asking for a change in the obligation. All I am asking is DOT, Commerce, DOE to collect:
$1/container or automobile
10 cents/barrel petroleum or product
10 cents/tn dry bulk(we'll even make it a long ton)
$1/cruise passenger on a ship which docks in the US
$100/day per drilling, dredging, exploration in us waters
comparable charges for inland freight
from the industries which benefit from the highly specific skill set training which the USMMA produces. ...
For the expressed purpose of maintaining the premier maritime university on the planet. And maybe it can get off the top 10 list of colleges with the worse food. The supreme maritime nation deserves no less.
Well not surprisingly I couldn't disagree more with your ideas. To me your idea basically identifies and attempts to set an additional tax on the US Maritime Industry in particular and Transportation as a function and industry in general. Further the numbers of dollars your tax would generate would far outpace and exceed that required to, if I've got this correct:
"For the expressed purpose of maintaining the premier maritime university on the planet." even if the USMMA's budgets and costs were double current apropriations - I'd also guess we could also double or triple what MARAD funds and provides all the State Maritime Academies as well and still have a "grunch" of dollars left over. The amount of freight moved via the Marine Mode is staggering and as I read your suggestion the added fees and tax are not just on US Flagged Vessels but the cargo no matter how it comes through a US Port. That said think about how the following locations/ports would benefit from such an idea: Halifax, N.S.; Vancouver B.C.; as well as likely numerous Great Lakes Ports on the Canadian side of the border; the Bahammas and possibly Bermuda though setting up any large port operations there would likely be very difficult. How would you treat Puerto Rico - it's a US Terratory vice State as well as Guam with this tax.; etc.
Then there is your comment: "comparable charges for inland freight". I assume you are talking about cargo that transverses the Inland Estuaries particularly the Missisipi and the Missouri Rivers and tributaries. Adding taxes and fees there is very much counter to the current idea of encouraging additional use of those and other large Inland Marine Highways in an effor to get trcks off the road, reduce the wear and tear on several key interstates, and do so in a way that helps the overall Transportation isystem in the US address what is and continues to be a shortage of over the road CDL truckers. Personally I believe looking at those kinds of Marine Transport mechanisms in a vacum as a seperate mode and taxing, managing infrastructure investments and regulating it entirely seperately, etc from freight rail, and truck is wrong-headed and I am certainly not alone in that view. Transportation across the NA continent is now truly an intermodal, integrated system. You cannot push in one area without very quickly seeing a bulge pop out in the others and to me that means before doing anything like that policy-wice the intended and unitended questions will need a lot more thought and debate than an off the cuff response on this form by either of us.
As far as a tax of $100/day for drilling, dredging and exploration in US Waters my reaction is those are three entirely distinct activities and lumping them in a single pile as well as hitting them with awhat is a $250,000 - $300,000+ /year tax to each vessel that conducts such operations in US Waters makes no sense whatsoever. First, the owners of the rights to do thos operations already paid some US Government entity for the leases and/or rights to do so - if you think those fees and rights are being sold at too low a value that's a different issue but the Government already has a mechanism to "get it's cut" on those resources. If your goal is truly to be a very stringent environmentalist and make sure those waters are the last place on earth someone would look for resources at the depths our (US's) EEZ then those fees would likely at least come close to achieving that effect. So much for offshor oil etc. being a potential way to reduce dependance on foriegn oil. Forget about even being able to speciously entertain te discussion of the cost of anything like the Jones Act (I like that one though, just pointing it out.) Then there are the facts that exploration and drilling do at least at some point possibly result in revenue and wealth creation that is generally clearly attributable to a benificiary or beneficiaries. Of course taxing or passing new/additiona real costs to the folks generally in that group - Energy Companies - hasn't been something our Government (either party) has shown a keen willingness or great ability to do over the past 20 or so years. Then dredging - are we talking about ALL dredging in US Waters? If so, how much addtional money should the US Army Corps of Engineers put in it's new budget element for this fee one group of our Government will pass to another? Do you propose that USACE should now try and impose end user fees to the local port authroities whose harbors they maintain ingress and egress to? I could go on but I'm guessing that's not what you are thinking about. I'm guessing that you thinking about it as just another tax/fee to be passed to mainly rich folks with boats and waterfront property for the private drege operators who drege thir docks and channels into their private harbors and marinias - just another 500 - 10,000 that would get passed on to them in the price that private dredge operator charges. That then ignores that these operators do NOT generally require, employ or need Maratime (USMMA or State Academy) graduates to ply their trade. But hey it is the season to just sock i to the rich, especially for any sort of luxary they might have, because after all there aren't already sufficient taxes on them. I mean rich people still do indeed have planes, yachts and waterfront homes with docks, etc.
All that aside, my biggest issue with this additional tax is the US Maritime Industry already pays more than it's fair share of taxes in comparison to it's Foriegn Flagged coutnerparts, as do USCG Licensed Mariniers following graduation - especially compared to their Western European coutnerparts. I could go on about this a lot more but suffice it to say comparable nations (UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, even Greece, etc) subsidize and or protect their own flags and the mariniers who staff their ships much more, in general, than is doen here in the US; and the taxes on their companies and working Mariniers are significantly lower on the whole than here in the US. It's no accident in this regard that A.P. Moeller-Maersk is roughly 1/4 of Denmark's GDP so while significant you might not want to include Denmark in the comparison but the other countries I mention also are much more supportative of their flags then the US, IMO.
I don't want to turn this into wether or not USMMA is properly funded - that's a whole nother thread. However lastly additional funding, regardless of source will not, in and of itself improve the food at Delano Hall. That's a competative Federal Procurement that is basically lowest bidder vice best value (even if the contract RFP says otherwise). To fix that in addition to possibly higher funding levels, then the RFP needs to change to include additional, more specific requiremetns (e.g. X choices/ meal, etc.) and if those requirements or they they specifically need to be raised; then the evaluation and award criteria needs to bereviewed and changed and lastly ongoing performance against the contract needs objective measures and the person managing and montioring that performance likely needs more flxibility to require the contactor to fix/improve things more easily and quicker than currently exists within the requirements of the contract/Statement of Work. Not everything is solely about money, in fact most things such as this are not solely about money in Federal Contracting.
Personally, I lived through mediocre Delano Food 30+ years ago, my son and his Classmates lived through it over the four most recent completed academic years - if I asked him what he'd like to have gotten at KP that he didn't get "better food" probably not be on his top five 1 and 2 would be his basic DPO certification and his towing endorsement; if he were an engineering major he's have other similar things that would and do require expanded/improved access to simulators and labs as well. Thankfully many of those things are at least addressed or included in the current (new) stragegic plan and/or the list of things RADM Hellis has given to the USMMAAF for his priorities for funding margin of excellence items.
Truth be told if Congress gave MARAD an
additional $300 - $600M for support of Maritime Education here in the US (specifically both USMMA and all the State Maritime Academies) that money could easily be well spent better supporting an industry vital to our nation's economic well being and overall security. In my view it could easily be gathered from other less necessary or lower priority items and certainly could be obtained without taking such dollars from other MARAD programs like subsidies to small shipyards, etc. After all MARAD is the smallest piece of DOT's budget and DOT is dwarfed, especially if you don't consider the Federal Highway Grant monies - though given in the past such grants included things like "The Bridge to Nowhere" you really cannot exclude them from the discussions, by DoD and DHS.
Finally, you seem to still be saying that you feel the Transportation Industy in General and it's Maritime components in particular are getting subsidized and supported by the Government in an unjustifiable, disporportinate manner to other US indsutries or are you a strict constituionalist and libretarian who believes Government should not subsidize or influence ANY industry? And if that's the case I guess you are all for ending your and my ability to deduct our home mortgages from our taxes, regardless of any unintended effects on the economy overall.
I know it is quite doable.
