June 24, 1977
Page 20841
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am happy to join again this year with my colleague from Maine in the cosponsorship of this amendment.
I appreciate the interest of the distinguished Senator from New York in joining in that cosponsorship.
Both New York and Maine, and other States, including Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, and California have these State maritime training schools.
In the case of Maine, the Maine Maritime Military Academy reflects a maritime and shipbuilding tradition in my State that goes back 300 years, and indeed the Maine Maritime Academy is located at Castine, which was the scene of one of the opening battles of the Revolutionary War.
So, there is a great tradition here which is reflected in the existence of the academy. It contributes to the education of. young men seeking the seafaring life which their fathers and forebears knew, and who have moved into the seafaring tradition out of the Maine Maritime Academy with credit to themselves and to their State.
So it is understandable, Mr. President, that we should undertake to protect their interests and to enable not only those with well-off families, but those who come from more austere backgrounds to seek to serve in the same tradition.
All we are asking for is simple equity, as the Senator from New York and my colleague have stated.
The subsidy of $600 was established in 1958, 19 years ago. Well, all of us know what has happened to the value of those dollars as a result of inflation in the years that have passed. That $600 today is worth $296.
Last year the argument was made that this subsidy has the effect of giving these cadets favored treatment over other students who seek higher education. The fact is that that argument misses the point. These cadets are not like other students in three important respects.
First, they are committed to drill time for which the subsidy is intended to compensate them in part.
Second, they must buy uniforms, an expense which students in nonmilitary institutions do not have to meet.
Third, they do not have their summer months as a way of earning outside income as is the case with other students.
So the subsidy was provided, in the first instance, to offset these unusual burdens, and that subsidy simply will not do the job today. Twelve hundred dollars today would be no more than the $600 in1958.
There are those who argue that we are providing more personnel through these programs than our merchant marine can absorb. The point is that this subsidy does not increase the numbers. If there is a case to be made for terminating the program, let us hear that case made and appropriate legislation introduced to serve this objective.
But to seek to terminate the program by making it so burdensome for those who are now students that they will have to quit and, in effect, deprive the institution of students is an indirect and I think ineffective and inequitable way to achieve that objective.
So long as these students are in schools serving a defined and accepted national tradition and national need, they should be treated on the same footing with others in like circumstances. Army and Navy ROTC cadets were given the $1,200 subsidy 5 years ago. There is no equity at all to have recognized their burden and deny the same treatment to the students in these maritime academies.
So, Mr. President, on the grounds of equity, on the basis that so long as this program continues we ought to recognize the needs of the people and the students who participate, I urge the adoption of this amendment which my good friend and colleague from Maine has introduced for the second year in a row, and I hope it will have the support of the Senate.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield myself sufficient time to reply to the distinguished Senator from Maine.
Mr. President, I think this would be a good time to discuss sunset, and tradition, and the general responsibilities of Congress, when we are confronted with programs that have long since outlived their usefulness.
With respect to tradition, my distinguished friend from Maine can talk of the seafaring nature of his constituency in Maine, which is probably only exceeded in that talent by its ability to manufacture textiles.
I remember when I tried to get my colleague down to South Carolina, to see all his textile mills that had moved out of New England and down to South Carolina, so I could talk about my constituency's tradition of manufacturing textiles. But I told him to hasten, because they were fast moving out of South Carolina to Japan, and from there to Korea, and on to Hong Kong and India.
Time moves along; and just as time moves along, there are many in this body who believe we should have a new system, which we call "sunset," which means you look at a bill and see if it has reached its sunset, when the needs for the program have gone by the board, and there is a need to terminate it. It is rather amusing to me that when this same party approaches a different problem in Government, they talk about zero based budgeting as a new system. If you had grown up in a poor State, you would have known about that a long time ago. There you were not looking for a new approach, you were looking for the necessary approach, which was minus zero when I took office. We had to go to everyone to start subtracting money.
So it is not wrapped up in a new system or a novel approach, or anything else. It goes back to the fundamentals of how and when, good commonsense, good horse sense, and good basic judgment.
I daresay if the Appropriations Committee had ever carried out its original function of oversight, we would never have had the Budget Committee. It was not a new approach; there was a delinquency, if we may characterize it as such, within the Appropriations Committee process.
One of our former committee chairmen, some time back, did not believe in a staff. I had served with him on the Agriculture Committee, and he felt minimal staffs, with the major problems of this growing, burgeoning bureaucracy, were all that was necessary, that we would just have one man to look at that particular need, as balance against, for example, the whole Department of Defense.
Now we come to the question of a little sunset on the matter of marine needs. My friends from Maine and those who sponsor this amendment say, as a matter of equity, they cannot see how the Army and the Navy ROTC need quite so much money, and theirs quite so little.
Mr. President, they ought to get nothing. Their program is over with. They have not increased the numbers in this program for the last 10 years.
Not one additional candidate will be added to this program with the amendment, if it were agreed to. The truth of the matter is, with the Volunteer Army, Navy, and Air Force, we need ROTC candidates. But here in the merchant marine, we are educating them for what? For other countries or other endeavors, because we can go back to the record we made not very long ago, Mr. President, when we pointed out that the updated record showed that a third of them were out of jobs right now.
We find that between April of 1973 and April of 1975, the number of licensed berths or job openings decreased from 8,347 to 7,140. Since they are at sea an average of 6 months a year, as an average amount of sea time, that means the loss of double that number of jobs or, on the basis of the most recent figures, from 1973 to 1975, more than 2,400 jobs have disappeared.
I regret it, Mr. President. The Senator from Connecticut and I in handling this bill, are trying to put America back into the oceans. With the leadership of the Senator from Washington, we are trying to develop our maritime industry; and it hurts me to put out these stark facts of life, but until there is a need, there is no point to put out this $1.2 million and call it equity.
According to the latest Coast Guard data, more than 50,000 men were licensed from 1973 through 1974, for less than 15,000 available jobs. In 1974, the Maritime Academies graduated 650 additional officers. In 1975, 585 were graduated. The National Counsel of the Maritime Academy Association stated to the U.S. Coast Guard that no shortage of deck and engine officers exists. He declared that there are enough licensed deck officers to meet all the future needs of the industry for at least 10 years.
I could go down the line item by item, if the gentlemen prefer, and argue the same thing. But I have learned from my distinguished leader on the Budget Committee to take "the macroeconomic view." That means to look at it all. That is a great word for the Senator from South Carolina to gargle: "macroeconomic."
What happens macroeconomically? Mr. President, they come first to HUD, and to HEW, to build the schools, then they get the schools built, now there is no one to put in them in Maine, despite that seafaring tradition.
So they increase the moneys in the allocation, and if you look more closely, we find they are pretty well up to snuff on filling the jobs.
As to the Federal aid students, in the State of Maine there are exactly 506, and 91 receive no aid at all, that are going in. If it was so inequitable, why are they going?
If you look at Massachusetts, there are 418 Federal aid students in the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and — they are exactly even — 418 receiving no aid. Even with no Federal aid, they go there. Or in New York, 644 Federal aid students, and 255 students there not receiving any Federal aid.
The problem is that we have built all these buildings there is no need for, but if we have to get down the per capita cost for running these academies, the academies have to go out and bring some kind of program telling about that tradition. So they tell them "everybody come back to the sea" — "back to the sea, my boy" because the Federal Government, like Kansas City, has gone about as far as it can go, and otherwise they cannot get any more.
Mr. President, this is a $1.2 million amount that ought to be rejected. How are we going to balance the budgets if we just go on and on, the Federal purpose long having been fulfilled and the institution outlived itself?
They say we have to have a sunset; at the same time they say we need a sunset bill to find such things out, they say, "Why have these military service ROTC's received it?"
It is because we have a continuing need for them, the Army, the Navy, and the rest. We do not need to talk about inflation.
We want to talk about the fundamental need in this country of ours to continue to subsidize Maritime Academies at any particular point when we are creating joblessness. Then we will come around and get another program for the unemployed, like countercyclical and otherwise, because we have created capacities for which there are not job availabilities, and, therefore, we have subsidized unemployment. We keep on going around and around and around.
That is why the committee, in all respect, having treated with this on the authorizing committee and looking at the facts and figures and where we were heading, said, "Look, let us stop."
He said, "Well, if that is what you want to do, let us make the argument to stop it. Maybe we will do that."
Maybe we will. We are the ones who want that badge or award for equity. The only way to do it equitably is the way we are presently doing it. It is not to increase the Federal aid but not decrease the Federal aid, and see if it will take its course, and, as a general rule, let these be blended over to Army ROTC or Navy ROTC programs. Maybe we will fill up the buildings that way. Maybe we will not have to worry about the unsuccess of the volunteer Army; we will have enough there.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HUDDLESTON) . Who yields time?
The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not really know what this amendment has to do with sunset or countercyclical, or some of the other frustrations which the distinguished floor manager directs toward programs in which I am interested. But if it pleases him to use this amendment to debate some of those concepts, I have no objection.
It also seems to please the Senator to ridicule the ambitions of these young men who are following an honorable profession, who, on the record, are finding opportunities in that profession, and whose government says these programs will continue.
If the distinguished Senator wishes to introduce legislation to terminate these programs so that we send a clear cut signal to these young men that there is no U.S. merchant marine with a future for them, I will be happy to debate that issue when it gets to the floor. But we have this program. We have had it for a number of years. We continue to open up with the taxpayers' dollars — a little stingy but with the taxpayers' dollars — and we seek to attract these young men into this profession. Then we say, "Well, you are performing a useless task, so we are going to make you accept this opportunity under a burden that nobody else in like circumstances is asked to bear.
I just do not see that way of sunset, putting the burden on all of these young men, many of whom cannot go to other schools of higher learning in my State, forcing them to sunset the program.
I say to the Senator if he wants to sunset the program, do it directly in a way that brings the issues to the floor, in a way which enables us to resolve it and decide as a Congress whether national interest is served by a continuation of these academies.
To go through the motions of providing an inadequate subsidy to continue the program and then ridicule these young men for asking for more simply because they want to be put on a par with others in like circumstances, I believe is a rather inhumane way to sunset the program.
I happen to believe we need these schools, but that is not the issue here today.
I happen to believe they serve a national interest, but that is not the issue here today.
It is not for this appropriation bill to terminate this program. That ought to be done through an appropriate legislative vehicle. Then let us have it, if that is the issue which the distinguished floor manager wants us to face.
So long as we have it, then for Heaven's sake these young men are entitled to be treated fairly and equitably. I do not think that is an irrelevant consideration, whatever the Senator from South Carolina has to say on that subject.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, if we were going to treat them equitably, it seems to me my distinguished friend would worry about the 91 not receiving aid. I would hate to visit that campus if there were all that need in my heart and mind. I would hate to visit a campus in my State with 506 receiving aid and 91 getting zilch, zero. Wherein has there been an amendment in this Congress to increase that number of 2,692? That is the fundamental and basic number fixed by the Maritime Administration.
That is not the issue.
Who is ridiculing the merchant marine? I served on the Coast Guard Academy Board, as the Senator from Washington knows. I presently serve on the Merchant Marine Academy Board at Kings Point, Long Island. My address is wharf, not street, 2 Voyce's Wharf, in Charleston. Do not tell me about ridiculing maritime. I have the greatest admiration for them.
I am talking good, common horse sense about a program that has outlived itself, and everybody knows it, if we used a sunset proceeding. They do not want to do it here in the U.S. Senate: A good example is the $1.4 billion to the Post Office, but do not look at it. They are the very same people who do not want to have any oversight and have hidden the committee and want a little contest, following that Postal Committee. It is not under the name of Post Office, the one original department of Government. We cannot find it there now. It is hidden under a secret name, I say to the Senator from West Virginia.
The Senator is saying we do not want to hear of it again. We are not going to have oversight. I had the committee for 5 years. I tried to hold a hearing and they forbade it, but they kept voting the money. That is exactly what we are doing. That is why I brought it up. It is certainly to sunset, not the cadets but to sunset this program. It ought to be killed.
It certainly ought to not be given $1.2 million more.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield,why does not the Senator introduce legislation to do just that?
Mr. HOLLINGS. I do not think I can get it passed.,
Mr. MUSKIE. So that is a strange reason. He is going to instead force these young men out of the program and force them to sunset it because the Senator does not think he is persuasive enough to do it himself?
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the horse in on the other end. People are coming in without any aid. Nobody is being forced out of the program. There are no facts to substantiate that. These schools are convenient to many.
I take it they are pretty good schools. In fact, one of the studies shows that the oil companies are the ones hiring the graduates now, some on the derricks. Maybe we need a school for the big oil of America to take care of those derricks. I do not know. But they are not ending up on ships. They are not ending up for the original maritime purpose. That is what we are trying to point out.
We are trying to hold the line on the budget. When we get in here and listen tothe requests and everything else, we get into this debate. The distinguished Senator from Michigan has a school.
Ever since I came to the Senate for the past 10 years he has had this amendment. It is a small group, a constituency. That is another part of the political problem. It is not sunsetting cadets but sunsetting programs so we can balance that budget.
When we look around and try to do it, then they say, "You are ridiculing the cadets." I did not ridicule any Maritime cadet. I just think if we are going to invest tax dollars; if we are going to go into energy, then let us put in some kind of school in geology.
Just the other afternoon we were trying to find out something about radiation and the matter of uranium, plutonium, and everything else. Maybe we ought to have a Federal school for the nuclear age and really know what is the truth on it. There are a lot of things that the Federal Government could probably start paying for in the energy field.
As we well know, less than 5 percent of the imported oil is shipped in American bottoms. Ninety-five percent is shipped in foreign bottoms. We are just not in the maritime business.
I regret it, but I cannot see, facing the needs of America as they are, putting millions more into a program long since having outlived its usefulness and then start talking about equity, start talking about sunsetting, debts, and the needs of this country.
I do think we ought to have the overall, comprehensive view. Having been given that, one thing concludes in my mind: We certainly should not put in more money after a program has become archaic and extinct, in a sense. It is a sad thing that they cannot find jobs on the other end of the line after they are trained in this particular area.