Thursday, March 28, 2024
Hawai'i Free Press

Current Articles | Archives

Saturday, June 24, 2017
Washington Holds Guam Back, Despite Not Knowing Where It Is
By Selected News Articles @ 8:02 PM :: 6954 Views :: National News, Jones Act, Military

Washington Holds Guam Back, Despite Not Knowing Where It Is

by Dennis Lennox, Daily Caller, June 23, 2017

Guam, so far west that it’s actually east, is where America’s day begins, at least that’s how Gov. Eddie Calvo described the geographic location of this American soil in Asia.

Yet the territory, an anachronism from when the United States vanquished Spain, gaining many of the former’s long-held colonial possessions, is more than a footnote in the annals of a dusty old volume on U.S. history.

Guam is front and center as the situations in North Korea and the South China Sea continue to unfold.

The Pentagon may know where Guam is — the island is home to Air Force and Navy installations — but few politicians and bureaucrats in the federal government can even find it on the map.

“Benign neglect,” were the words Lieutenant Gov. Ray Tenorio used to describe Washington’s relationship with his island. “The feds view Guam only as a military asset. Nothing more.”

The situation is only magnified by a political status that denigrates the loyal Americans who live here to second-class status.

Denied a full voting member of the House of Representatives, its delegate to Congress can only vote in committees. It also has lacks senators and has zero votes in the Electoral College for president, meaning Guam has little political capital in a city where influence is everything.

Notwithstanding Washington’s indifference to what happens beyond the fences encircling the Navy and Air Force bases, the island has a strong economy rooted in tourism.

While Japanese and South Koreans know Guam is comparable to Hawaii, American tourists are non-existent thanks to the federal government.

Blame cabotage, an obscure legal doctrine that prevents foreign-flagged airlines from flying between two U.S. airports. The only way to get to Guam without leaving America is on United via Honolulu, a flight that is longer and more expensive than most flights to Europe from the East Coast.

Cabotage also extends to the seas via the Jones Act, an imperialist federal law that massively increases the costs of living and doing business through mercantilism. As a result, pretty much everything is shipped in from the mainland even though it would make much more sense to buy say fresh food from the Philippines or Taiwan.

The federal government is also hurting Guam’s economy in two other areas.

Between its relatively small population of about 170,000 people and its considerable distance from the mainland, Guam has relied upon Filipino workers going back to when the Philippines was a territory under the Star and Stripes.

That wasn’t a problem until H-2B worker visas went from nearly a 100 percent issuance rate to a nearly 100 percent denial rate under the now-former Obama administration. Worse yet is the fact that the feds won’t provide any real explanation for the sudden change.

Flash forward to today and there aren’t enough workers to handle both private sector development — hotels, new housing and even backyard pools — and the massive build-up resulting from the pending transfer of U.S. Marines from Japan. When there are spare workers they are lured away by lucrative work on the bases.

Politically it’s difficult for Guam, without senators and a vote in the House, to convince Washington that its need for guest workers is substantively different than those exploiting guest worker visas back on the mainland.

Completely separate from the issue is something more outrageous.

Since the World War II-era there has been a shipyard here with at least one dry dock to maintain and repair Navy vessels.

Following post-Cold War military installation closures the ship repair facility was eventually privatized with a company called Guam Shipyard operating the dry dock. Unlike those on a H-2B visa, dry dock workers are Americans.

These skilled trade jobs, which numbered in the hundreds and paid premium wages, are exactly the sort of job that President Donald Trump talked about during his campaign.

Skilled trades are critical to revitalizing American industry, including in the Rust Belt but also on a small island like Guam, where good-paying jobs like those at the dry dock diversify an economy overly dependent on tourism.

Unfortunately for Guam, penny-pinching bureaucrats in the Pentagon have sacrificed the national interest and put hundreds of Americans out of work by taking vessels to dry docks in Singapore, the Philippines and now India.

With communist Chinese nationals making up 25 percent of workers in Singapore’s shipyards it isn’t wise to have foreign nationals repairing billion-dollar Navy vessels.

Despite Congress recognizing, as recently as the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, that utilizing a dry dock in Guam was a vital national interest — economically, militarily — the Navy is deliberating playing games by designating vessels as forward-deployed to circumvent a federal law that would otherwise require maintenance and repairs to occur in Guam or other U.S. ports.

One cannot help but to wonder what motivates Pentagon bureaucrats to ignore the national interest, especially in light of the so-called Fat Leonard corruption scandal plaguing the Navy.

Of course, one also realizes that Guam’s political status makes it easier to send Navy vessels to shipyards in foreign countries.

Don’t think for one minute this would happen if the territory had senators let alone a full voting congressman who could actually wield the power of the purse in Guam’s favor.

Links

TEXT "follow HawaiiFreePress" to 40404

Register to Vote

2aHawaii

808 Silent Majority

Aloha Pregnancy Care Center

AntiPlanner

Antonio Gramsci Reading List

A Place for Women in Waipio

Ballotpedia Hawaii

Broken Trust

Build More Hawaiian Homes Working Group

Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii

Cliff Slater's Second Opinion

DVids Hawaii

FIRE

Fix Oahu!

Frontline: The Fixers

Genetic Literacy Project

Grassroot Institute

Habele.org

Hawaii Aquarium Fish Report

Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society

Hawaii Catholic TV

Hawaii Christian Coalition

Hawaii Cigar Association

Hawaii ConCon Info

Hawaii Debt Clock

Hawaii Defense Foundation

Hawaii Family Forum

Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United

Hawaii Farmer's Daughter

Hawaii Federalist Society

Hawaii Federation of Republican Women

Hawaii History Blog

Hawaii Homeschool Association

Hawaii Jihadi Trial

Hawaii Legal News

Hawaii Legal Short-Term Rental Alliance

Hawaii Matters

Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care

Hawaii Public Charter School Network

Hawaii Rifle Association

Hawaii Shippers Council

Hawaii Smokers Alliance

Hawaii State Data Lab

Hawaii Together

HIEC.Coop

HiFiCo

Hiram Fong Papers

Homeschool Legal Defense Hawaii

Honolulu Moms for Liberty

Honolulu Navy League

Honolulu Traffic

House Minority Blog

Imua TMT

Inouye-Kwock, NYT 1992

Inside the Nature Conservancy

Inverse Condemnation

Investigative Project on Terrorism

July 4 in Hawaii

Kakaako Cares

Keep Hawaii's Heroes

Land and Power in Hawaii

Legislative Committee Analysis Tool

Lessons in Firearm Education

Lingle Years

Managed Care Matters -- Hawaii

Malama Pregnancy Center of Maui

MentalIllnessPolicy.org

Military Home Educators' Network Oahu

Missile Defense Advocacy

MIS Veterans Hawaii

NAMI Hawaii

Natatorium.org

National Christian Foundation Hawaii

National Parents Org Hawaii

NFIB Hawaii News

No GMO Means No Aloha

Not Dead Yet, Hawaii

NRA-ILA Hawaii

Oahu Alternative Transport

Obookiah

OHA Lies

Opt Out Today

OurFutureHawaii.com

Patients Rights Council Hawaii

PEACE Hawaii

People vs Machine

Practical Policy Institute of Hawaii

Pritchett Cartoons

Pro-GMO Hawaii

P.U.E.O.

RailRipoff.com

Rental by Owner Awareness Assn

ReRoute the Rail

Research Institute for Hawaii USA

Rick Hamada Show

RJ Rummel

Robotics Organizing Committee

School Choice in Hawaii

SenatorFong.com

Sink the Jones Act

Statehood for Guam

Talking Tax

Tax Foundation of Hawaii

The Real Hanabusa

Time Out Honolulu

Trustee Akina KWO Columns

UCC Truths

US Tax Foundation Hawaii Info

VAREP Honolulu

Waagey.org

West Maui Taxpayers Association

What Natalie Thinks

Whole Life Hawaii

Yes2TMT