Trump's Project 2025 wants to repeal the Jones Act

From the Heritage Foundation website

Maybe this is not new news, as there has been speculation about this since his presidency. Will he be able to get it done this time around?

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If Project 2025 is fully enacted, losing the Jones Act will be the least of our worries if you ask me.

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I hadn’t heard of Project 2025 before today, thanks for giving me something new to read. As a Libertarian, I think it is a good idea to consolidate our Federal Government, and have sat in on conversations aboard various ships throughout my career listening to guys talk about some of the points below. I do realize if the JOnes Act is changed, steps could be taken to remove it completely, but perhaps it does need to evolve in order for us to maintain a viable US Flag. The below is from Chapter 19 of their “Mandate” as it relates to the Department of Transpotation, and specifically, MARAD, which probably effects most lurkers on this website:

MARITIME POLICY The Maritime Administration (MARAD) was established by President Harry Truman in 1950 and was transferred to DOT in 1981. A principal function is “maintain[ing] the overall health of the U.S. Merchant Marine,”15 which is important both to national defense and to foreign and domestic commerce. MARAD is also in charge of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and operates ships and funding for the six state maritime academies. MARAD would be better served by being transferred from DOT to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). MARAD is the only DOT modal administration that does not regulate the industry that it represents: The maritime industry is regulated by the U.S. Coast Guard (ships and personnel) and by the Federal Maritime Commission (cargo rates and competitive practices). Furthermore, MARAD has responsibilities both in peacetime commerce and operationally in wartime/crisis sealift through its responsibility to manage the National Defense Reserve Fleet and 45-ship Ready Reserve Force for the U.S. Navy. These missions are unique to MARAD within DOT. As a result, MARAD’s missions and purpose, and therefore its funding priorities, are not well understood and historically have been minimalized in planning and budgeting. MARAD, including its subordinate Service Academy (the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy) should be transferred to the Department of Defense (if the Coast Guard is located there because DHS has been eliminated) or to the Department of Homeland Security. In this way, the two agencies charged with oversight and regulation of the Maritime sector—MARAD and the United States Coast Guard—would be aligned under the same department where operational e ciencies could be realized more easily. Serious consideration should be given to repealing or substantially reforming the Jones Act,16 which would require legislation. The economic costs of the Jones Act, which is notionally in place to promote a robust Merchant Marine, vastly exceed its e ect on the supply of domestic ships. For instance, no liquified natural gas (LNG) can be shipped from Alaska to the lower 48 states because there are no U.S.-flagged ships that carry LNG. If there are genuine concerns about U.S. fleet capacity in the absence of the Jones Act, it would be possible to do so through an expansion of the Defense Reserve Fleet. Another DHS agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is a frequent user of MARAD Ready Reserve Force shipping during disaster assistance missions. Transferring MARAD to DHS would make coordination and requisition of those vessels a smoother and more rapid process. DHS has responsibility for reviewing and approving Jones Act waivers. This process first requires a market survey of available shipping tonnage that is completed by MARAD. The processing of Jones Act waiver requests would be streamlined if both agencies were in the same department. Finally, DHS as a department is experienced in administering and budgeting for the operation of an existing federal service academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, which is similar to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in size. There would be increased e ciencies and better alignment of the missions of these two institutions if they were under one single department that has equity in the industries served by these academies.

Most probably won’t like this, but:

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I believe the exact opposite. The FAA doesn’t fall under the Air Force. Trucking and rail don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the Army. Why should maritime commerce fall under the military? Because in war it would be in aid of the military? So would planes, trucks, and rail. So that can’t be the reason.

If you want an agency that regulates the Reserve Fleet then spin off the RF and give it wholly to the Navy, but pivot Marad more fully to the private sector. Return the jurisdiction of maritime commerce to the Department of Transportation, where it used to be.

I have no problems with the USCG overseeing licensing etc. They do a good job with the resources they have, but licensing should fall under a new version of Marad, just as aircraft pilot licensing falls under FAA.

The maritime commerce of the USA is dominated by the towing and OSV industries. The MARITIME Administration should be more centered on those trades. They would still have bandwidth to deal with the “deep-sea” sector–less than a hundred vessels and decreasing-- just as they do now.

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Trump has never endorsed Project 2025. I dont think there are many, if any elected Republicans that support it either.

Its a wish list from a “conservative think tank” and frankly, its so absurd it reads like a psyop. I dont know if it’s Russian propaganda, or a left leaning organization’s propaganda, but I certainly don’t beleive anyone in their right mind would support it.

They talk about disolving NOAA for Christ’s sake. I can send a wish list to Santa too, but he stopped answering my letters once I moved out of my parents house.

This is a made up effigy of an extreme right wing lunatic used to scare people towards Biden. I dont know who exactly is behind it, but its probably whoever said there would be mandatory gay conversion camps if he was elected last time.

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NOAA should be dissolved and replaced with an organization that is the exact same in every way except they hire deck officers from outside their stupid program.

I WANT THAT JOB!

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If it is psyop, then why is the proposal on the Heritage Foundation website?

Don’t think the Heritage Foundation doesn’t have power. The Reagan administration greenlighted the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars Program”) in part because of the HF lobbying the president and congressmen to pass it. The SDI was a proposal to ring the globe with space lasers to shoot down Soviet missiles.

If you can get much of the government to vote for space lasers, getting them to vote to can the Jones Act doesn’t sound far-fetched.

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Stay with me while I put my tin foil hat on.

The heritage foundation is increasingly being cited in Russian propaganda and keeps opposing Ukrainian aid from what I can tell. It wont take too much in terms of mental gymnastics to say they may be at least cozy with Russia. From there we can jump to a washed up conservative grifter being paid by the Russians, it would only take a couple to steer the project. When you factor in there were “over 100 conservative organizations” contributing to the project, thats a lot more room for foreign influence. Who knows if they just had one shared google doc or how much involvement all these “organizations” may have had. If you click on to some of their websites from the Project 2025 site, its clear its one guy running the “organization”

You can also replace Russia in this case, with a left wing organization wanting to make some crazy effigy of an uber right wing nut job spewing AI insanity to make trump look bad as well.

There is an important distinction in this video where they pivot from Trump’s actual game plan to project 2025, they actually say, “this is what trump wants to do” when citing his campaign website, but they never actually say Project 2025 is Trump’s plan. Its just a wish list.

And its just far reaching and crazy enough to hit a majority of the right leaning bases and get people afraid. We’re talking about it here, Its getting talked about on r/hurricane, I cant follow every industry, but I can only imagine the reach it has. I can imagine it hits on almost every other sector to get people talking. If I’m right its a genius move on their part.

Every time John McCain started yapping the Jones Act still had bipartisan support. Its counterintuitive to have all these pro-military, pro-american jobs “conservative groups” contributing to a plan that would cripple American logistics.

Project 2025 is a paradox, its so dumb on the surface, but seems to be engineered to go viral- evidence of intelligent design. There’s no way educated Americans who want to win an election made this. Follow the money.

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But so is Tucker Carlson, and so did a majority of the Republican caucus in the House. It’s topsy-turvy time in America.

I agree. I mean, it’s also counterintuitive to think that the Republican presidential candidate’s proposed tariffs (60% on Chinese imports, 10% for everyone else) will do anything good for most working Americans.

I came of age in Reagan’s GOP, and the current party bears no resemblance. The current Heritage Foundation also only vaguely resembles the think-tank that provided Reagan with his “Mandate for Leadership.”

One thing it wasn’t then and isn’t now is a leftist false flag operation. The cognitive dissonance, though, has grown enormously.

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IMHO looking form the outside if the jones act was modified to 2 stops most of the arguments would go away?

Seriously. Can we just use Trumps first term as an indicator of what may lay in store for the second term. The man is preaching retribution as his stump speach and did just about anything these extreme “think tanks” suggested on his first term.

Getting rid of NOAA? Yes I can believe it. Remember when he had to sharpie in the path of the hurricane when the NHC didn’t put out a forecast that fit his narrative? Or when he inquired about detonating a nuclear device to destroy a hurricane?

I’m sorry, but if you are not legitimately concerned for the future of this country with the stuff coming out of their mouths (MAGA’s), their legislative actions (not all that much admittedly, but congress is a dung heap), or the political activism in the courts, then we are living in different realities. The problem is, we need to make these many different realities live in harmony as a country and that is increasingly difficult when they continue to skew further and further apart. I do not see a way back to the middle of the track line. The place where the majority of us would prefer to be.

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I am legitimately concerned about whats comming out of everyone’s mouth, the pendulum of rhetoric is swinging back and forth so violently that we’re going to run out of road to kick the can down. Project 2025 certainly isnt the answer, and the Left’s plan isnt the answer either. Neither disbanding NOAA, nor banning ICE vehicles by 2030 are feasible plans. Meanwhile the Atlantic hasnt been less than a record high for over a year. If anyone actually believed or cared, we’d see action being taken to either harden or evacuating states like Florida and California. We are on a road to solving the dispute by cutting the baby in half.

Im not saying with confidence that its the left. But by some metrics, WWIII is already underway, and there are some incredibly unprecedented technological advances that I think people are just unaware of being an issue. Its no longer pen and paper, Bay of Pigs, CIA level operations. Imagine if Nazi Germany had a platform to directly influence everyone in America through social media. Information warfare is not going to just look like an AI generated picture of a soldier with no legs saying “its my birthday.” You just need to make something just believable enough and get people to start repeating it. Project 2025 is so out of touch, but just believable enough I think its a candidate for one of these attacks. Look at the outrage and Panic its causing and Trump hasn’t even endorsed it.

Everyone wants to come for the 2nd Ammendment, but the 1st Ammendment wasn’t written with the current media ecosystem in mind either. Political commentary should have a disclaimer on screen, or be limited in hours its alllwed to be broadcasted. There is also a conflict of interest in selling advertisements on news broadcasts, it creates a race to the bottom of sensationalism. The 24 hour news cycle is going to be the downfall of our country.

In summary, our parents were right all along, those damn phones were the problem all along.

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The Jones Act will not be repealed. Period.

Possibly some modifications (like allowing foreign built LNG tankers), but the Jones Act will not be gutted.

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It takes less typing to just write Trump.

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The same think tank that is responsible for getting all six conservative justices appointed to the Supreme Court.

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Koch has a big money hand in most of this over the years. They make Soros look like a pauper.

Progressives are more of a coalition, while conservatives are more unified. The left tends to have a broader range of goals and perspectives.

Personally I think it’s time to drop the labels of conservative, liberal, progressive etc. Most of us cannot be categorized and hate being put into a box. I tell people I am an independent realist which probably describes many people.

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The heritage foundation is full of never trumper and Lincoln project people so I would take this as outsiders who used to be insiders attempting to sway policy.

Any move on the Jones Act would require congressional action and the amount of bipartisan support for the Act is solid.

It’s pretty hard to win a battleground state like Pennsylvania if you run on cutting aid to their shipyard.

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