The Heritage Foundation has issued a statement supporting congressional efforts to boost domestic shipbuilding capacity, while also calling for reforms to enhance maritime strength. The statement was made by Brent Sadler, Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology; Richard Stern, Acting Director of the Hermann Center for the Federal Budget; and Miles Pollard, Policy Analyst for Economic Policy.
The experts responded to the reintroduction of the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) for America Act. They said: "The revised SHIPS for America Act is a strong down payment towards revitalizing America’s maritime capacity and holding entities of concern, like China, accountable for their non-market actions. We encourage Congress to go further in refining the legislation which would help revitalize our port cities, grow our industrial workforce, and strengthen the strategically important shipping and shipbuilding sectors of our economy."
They added that successful legislation would reduce reliance on Jones Act protections and subsidies by fostering an innovation-based American comparative advantage rather than using tax credits or other incentives. They suggested replacing federal taxation with a distributed profits tax to encourage capital investment in domestic shipping and shipbuilding.
The Heritage Foundation previously described the SHIPS for America Act as "a step in the right direction" and released a report in March analyzing necessary shipbuilding reforms. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has identified U.S. Navy revitalization as crucial to national security strategy.
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