Interesting Bernie Saunders mathematics your proposing. I guess its just like we shouldn't have propped up the failing automakers a few years ago or all the money we taxpayers have dumped into all the "Green Energy" boondoggles that have yet to produce anything at all least of all make a profit.Guest wrote:I'd agree that another Poe size lock should be built and another large ice breaker as well. I don't think the US tax payer should be footing the bills. The days of the Soo being needed for national security are history. That title might be better applied to Silicon Valley now. To pay for all this we should start collecting tolls at the locks much like the Seaway does. There's no reason for us to to prop up failing steel companies or declining coal burning operations. The super rich who own their own fleets won't go hungry if they pay tolls.
As for the rhetoric about the super rich owning fleets, I believe most are stockholder owned. That means the vast majority are funded by employee pensions, 401k's and small investors holding shares.
As for dumping obsolete 1000 footers, they are the most efficient boats for hauling ore and coal which is the staple of the American markets. Where are these marginally profitable companies supposed to come up with the 10's of millions of dollars to replace each of these boats? Unlike the Fed Govt, they can't just print money and squander it.
Tolls wouldn't solve the problem either, it would be like all deceptive tax schemes and hinder the economy and hamstring what little profitability there is left in the Great Lakes maritime market.
If we surrender our ability to make steel, manufacture goods with it and de-industrialize the Great Lakes region, then the Arsenal Of Democracy will have been lost and along with it, a large part of our independence and freedom.