When Thomas Paine said, "(G)overnment, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one." He added that when it's self-inflicted, "(O)ur calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." The Gulf of Mexico disaster has been made worse because of Washington acts similar to Great Britain's tyrannical acts that caused our founders to rise up in rebellion in 1776. Let's look at it.
The Navigation Act was that name given to laws that regulated trade and commerce between Great Britain and its colonies. First enacted in 1651, and often amended, the law stipulated that no merchandise was to be carried to Britain or its colonies except by British ships built and manned by British subjects. The act stifled American manufacturing, increased the cost of goods and gave rise to smuggling and increased resentment against the mother country. The purpose of the mercantilist Navigation Act was to protect and enrich British interests.
You say, "Williams, the history lesson is nice but what does it have to do with the Gulf oil disaster?" Foreign companies, with extensive successful experience in oil spill cleanups, have offered their services but have been refused by Washington. Why? A Coast Guard spokesman said that Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian vessels are being barred from the Gulf region because they "do not meet the operational requirements of the Unified Area Command." That's another way to say that the 1920 Jones Act, a protectionist law not unlike Britain's Navigation Act, requires vessels working in U.S. waters be built in the U.S. and be crewed by U.S. workers.
James Carafano, researcher at the Heritage Foundation, said, "The unions see it as ... protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived, and they pound on politicians when they do that." Carafano asks, "So are we giving in to unions and not doing everything we can, or is there some kind of impediment that we don't know about?" President Obama has the power to waive the Jones Act to allow foreign vessels and crews to bring their expertise to the Gulf cleanup, but he fears angering American labor unions.
This is not the first time that Washington's catering to shipping interests produced disaster for our country.
Congress enacted the Navigation Act of 1817 providing, "that no goods, wares, or merchandise shall be imported under penalty of forfeiture thereof, from one port in the United States to another port in the United States, in a vessel belonging wholly or in part to a subject of any foreign power." Since the South was the nation's major exporter, Northern protectionist measures went a long way toward setting up the grievances that ultimately led to secession and the War of 1861.
Have you wondered why a foreign cruise ship can take you from Anchorage, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbia but not to a more convenient U.S. port such as Seattle? You can blame it on a law very similar to the Jones Act. That's the Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA) of 1886 (46 U.S.C. 289) states that "no foreign vessel shall transport passengers between ports or places in the United States, under penalty of $200 for each passenger so transported or landed." PVSA is simply a protectionist law to spare American ships from international competition. PVSA permits American shipping companies to financially rip off their shipping and passenger customers by charging prices that would be otherwise unsustainable without the law.
The bottom line lesson is nothing good can come from trade restrictions except windfall gains by a small group of beneficiaries, shipping companies and their unions that come at the expense of a much larger number of people — customers who ship and passengers who travel. The only good news is that the Gulf disaster is making the victims of such restrictions visible.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
|
 |
Comments
|
3 Comments | Post Comment
|
|
Right on, Bro.
Taxpayers are shareholders in the USA Corporation. These protectionist laws cost taxpayers. So do the elected officials and bureaucrats who enact and enforce them. The costs are not merely economic, as we are seeing, but pervasive and incalculable.
Why do taxpayers put up with it? You get the government you're willing to pay for.
Katharine Otto
Comment: #1
Posted by: Katharine C. Otto, MD
Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:58 PM
|
|
|
|
Excellent point! Thank you, Dr. Williams.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Joy Schwabach
Wed Jun 23, 2010 6:08 PM
|
|
|
|
Thanks, Walter Williams. Good Article. The following was sent to me and I thought your readers might want to see.
The Kennedys & others like him did a 'Hi-Ho Hitler" job when they chose to
go along with Mattoon and the socialist party! Obama is just the scape goat
for the ones before him to make sure 'destruction' to America is his No. 1
Priorty.
==========================================================================
He has got 2 years to destroy us!
Subject: FW: Overwhelming the System...Read it and Weep
Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is
brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely
overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic
crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our
country from within.
Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of
'83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is
following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia
University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming
the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the
clues below.
Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a
brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a
socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately
needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote
for bigger government.
Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do
with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of
hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000
new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama
doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will
add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it
cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big
government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless
spending bill in the middle of a depression?
Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do
with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming.
It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government
control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest
contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like
GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support
everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of
dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them
in power.
The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars,
bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."
Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's
asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government
entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American
taxpayers.
But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new
Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal
Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.
Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12
million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm
the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new
Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add
another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children,
food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and
eventually Social Security.
Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to
Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including
billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees
across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their
employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman
Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in
(contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby
protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote
loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that
are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations
face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and
the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.
Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job
creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of
taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those
who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted
to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama
wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.
With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast
and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big
government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for
big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism
and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by
my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the
Cloward and Piven Plan.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Shirley deLong
Thu Jun 24, 2010 1:44 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
