You want me to pick between two programs I support fully? Do you also want me to post which stuff f my two children I love more?
Maybe I’ll answer but I need more information. What is the mechanism for transferring funds from kp to msp? How confident are we that all of those kp funds would end up in msp?
Also there is the fact that it’s a moot point. There is already more money in msp than shipowners willing to sign up for the program.
And I’ll ask you a question:
If we can just move money easily from one government project to another how about we drag that last Zumwalt class destroyer out of ship yard, sinker her, and transfer the money to MSP and KP?
that’s it…you are dissembling just as I thought you would.
simply pick one option, keep KP or add more US flagged ships enrolled in the MSP? what would be more important use of $100M to you?
as you can clearly see, I am trying to paint you into a corner here and tell all those who care where your priorities lie?
I loathe Navee waste and would love to see nothing more than to see funding for all these worthless new warships they are building be cancelled. Just money wasted on just one piece of shit LCS would fund a fabulous new Merchant Marine subsidy program for a year.
You are trying though to evade my question. If you were and Maritime Administrator and had to choose where to spend the money, which would get it? KP or MSP? Pick one please and let us all know what is more important to you?
You’re an idiot. You can’t answer questions based on false assumptions. Fuck I just did an entire video on the danger of false assumptions.
The false assumption you were operating on is that if we give up KP the feds will let us use the money towards something useful.
THEY WILL NOT
They will take the money we save from closing KP and spend it on something stupid.
Double funding to BOTH programs! That’s my final answer.
The one thing I can’t figure out about you though c.captain. Is if you’re really that dumb not realize that the government doesn’t let you transfer money from one program to another or if you are the most brilliant person On this forum.
Possibly Brilliant because I didn’t give two craps about your Alma mater KP i’ll tell you started telling everyone how useless it is and I had to actually look up the numbers and research the facts. And now that I have the facts I’m the biggest support of your former school.
Are you dumb or did you just use reverse psychology on me??
So in my opinion John you are just showing us that you are the same typical politician that has led us to the exact miserable situation that we are in today. Impossible for you to take a stand on principle but give us wishy-washy positions none of which lead to any change or betterment of what every American here should agree is a collapse of a vital National Defense resource.
And you don’t have to try to hide the fact that you don’t care for me and really never have because I take strong principled positions which for the most part are in direct opposition to our esteemed leaders in Washington including the man you now venerate so much Admiral Buzby. He certainly got to you somehow? As far as I am concerned he is every bit as useless as the late lamented Chuck E. Matsuda. Did you ever ask him, where is that Maritime Policy which is now 5 years late or did you forget to while you both were enjoying a round of golf together?
Vintage stuff here boys. Now where is fraqrat when you need him
Wishy-washy??
I said:
1: send a tug to drag that last F’n Zumwalt out of drydock
2: sink her at sea
3: take the remaining money in the program and us it to
4: double the budgets of kp and msp
What’s wishy washy about that?
Fuck, it’s so simple and straightforward of a plan that I might sell it as a tshirt!
His non answer and resorting to name-calling is all you need to know. Of course he won’t answer the A or B question, because it won’t fit his preferred narrative. Just wish I could figure out what that narrative was, but the verbiage used in recently started a blog posts kind of all bend in on themselves like a pretzel.
Oy! Don’t worry about our money, you guys keep arguing over your decimal dust.
Really can’t agree with you more and now I am seriously questioning my motivations in even bothering? This forum is a rudderless ship going and getting nowhere. It is why I had stayed away and why I am again going away.
In all honesty…why bother at all when the level of discourse is so pathetic?
Could you say, it’s a DiscourseHub?
Well used to being the supreme master of his dominion, @c.captain sees the issue purely in terms of beneficial policies he could instate as a dictator. Meanwhile @john, having flown too close to Washington and experienced the harsh realities of melting wax, sees only the sort of compromise that could be hammered through a particularly dense and corrupt bureaucracy. I wonder why the two of you communicate so well 
Don’t you realize that we need both a radical visionary to set the course for change and someone with the political know-how to bring it about incrementally?
Great point, the new technology component should complement the CORE navigation skills. If we aren’t thoughtful about this, we’ll end up with computer operators who have no plan B when the excrement hits the fan.
Oh, you mean the Naval Option?
I’m with c.capt here. Close KP and use that money to grow the MSP, and gain some US Flag ships.
There are 6 other maritime academies and they all have an ROTC option that leads to a reserve commission and will pay for the schooling.
c capt - sorry to be in the dark on the MSP, and only if you have time - can you elaborate on the $5m a year. Is that just a subsidy given to existing ships - or is there some way they have figured out how to build and operate a US flag ship for 5.0m year ??
…
Disclaimer: I have no dog in this fight, and my opinion and $2 will buy you a cup of coffee. It seems to me you guys are arguing a false dichotomy, that you can have MSP or KP. Clearly the answer is to have both. The MARAD FY21 budget asks for $314M for MSP and $82M for KP. I don’t know if those are the “right” numbers, but the lion’s share of the money is already flowing to MSP. The next biggest chuck was for the new training ship you guys are buying the maritime schools. It looks like there used to be $250M that went to port improvement that is no longer there - your budget got cut by 25%; where’s the outrage for that?
As to KP, I looked, and it has an attendance of around 1000. For the most recent graduating class of 206, 82 were going on active duty in the military (I assume most go Navy?). (https://www.usmma.edu/about/communications/us-merchant-marine-academy-graduates-merchant-marine-and-military-officers) That’s 40% of graduates that don’t go work in industry (at least right away). Put another way, $82,000/year/student (based on 1000 students) means that MARAD is subsidizing DoD’s officer accessions to the tune of $27M a year. I don’t know how much it costs to maintain our naval presence on campus, but I don’t think it costs us anything like that. In an ideal world you could turn around and hand that bill to DoD for reimbursement, but I suspect they’d tell you to go jump in a lake.
Having KP is good for the Merchant Marine, because every year it could be graduating 200 bright, ambitious licensed officers who will be lifelong advocates for a strong MM. Right now though it’s a backup plan for too many. I personally have known people who went to KP because they couldn’t get into Annapolis. Don’t abolish KP, reform it. Remove the ability to go active duty after graduation. Bring in midshipmen who actually want to be merchies. All the other more grandiose plans bandied about are great too, but this one change would do wonders to bring KP back to its stated mission.
