How a Dumb Protectionist Law From 1920 Still Screws People From New Jersey to Hawaii
2nd March 2014
NPR has a story about how The Jones Act, a 1920 law designed to protect the U.S. shipping industry from foreign competition, has made it difficult for New Jersey to get large shipments of road salt this winter. The Garden State could have brought 40,000 tons of salt down from Maine on a single ship, saving time and money during one of the toughest winters in memory, but instead has to ferry a barge capable of handling shipments of under 10,000 tons back and forth, adding costs and delays.
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It’s not just folks in frigid New Jersey who are suffering because of a dumb old law. The NPR story touches on how The Jones Act screws over Hawaii especially. Thanks to this form of protectionism, residents of America’s furtherst-flung state routinely pay 15 percent to 20 percent more for goods that come from the mainland.
But I’ll bet American Unions love it, like the Davis-Bacon Act.