Proposed budget would cut Coast Guard 14% | WorkBoat

Also comparable cuts to NOAA. So weather forecasting will go downhill and if you need help the Coast Guard may not be up to rescuing you.

usually it just becomes a money shuffle to keep a roundtable of people happy...USCG search and rescue will always get fully funded...just too shiny a penny to not fund when lives are at stake and the cameras are rolling.

Maybe they will stop boarding trawlers operated by old white couples.

Maybe our local "bikini inspection patrol" will stay at the dock til a SAR mission comes up...

Ski in NC said:

Maybe our local "bikini inspection patrol" will stay at the dock til a SAR mission comes up...

Click to expand...

The government has two choices: Cut spending or raise taxes. It appears the voter's choice was to cut spending. Of course everyone has their own ideas of what should be cut and what should not.

WesK said:

The government has two choices: Cut spending or raise taxes. It appears the voter's choice was to cut spending. Of course everyone has their own ideas of what should be cut and what should not.

Click to expand...

Actually the current plan doesn't cut overall spending, just reallocates it to military, and raises taxes on some while lowering on others. Now, there will be a lot of debate and changes before anything gets approved.

Fortunately the backbone of the government as small as it is stays rigid enough that certain things escape the whims of elected temp workers.

Recently I read an article that was describing the expected cut of 95% on the budget for great lake waste water management and the consequence on water pollution on the great lakes and st-Lawrence. I found it very interesting and alarming at the same time.

Free Lunch is a Religion, and is never cut.

WesK said:

Maybe they will stop boarding trawlers operated by old white couples.

Click to expand...

The many times they boarded us, always gentlemen, and enjoyed looking at my stainless smith and Wesson. But truly, can be a pain, in narrow sections of the ditch.

BandB said:

Actually the current plan . . . raises taxes on some while lowering on others.

Click to expand...

I haven't been following this, at least not closely enough to understand that the proposal was to raise taxes on anyone. So, I ask with all sincerity: Upon whom are taxes proposed to be raised? From what I understand, even carried interests are not to be taxed as ordinary income.

casual rescues vs difficult rescues

When did the USCG not want to tow in the pleasure boaters who ran out of gas, etc? About the late '70's early '80's I think. The well know towing agencies do this now.

Is it a big step to have SeaTow run helos with cable lifts?

I have not yet seen a County sheriff helo with a lift. It will be quite a learning curve.

diver dave said:

When did the USCG not want to tow in the pleasure boaters who ran out of gas, etc? About the late '70's early '80's I think. The well know towing agencies do this now.

Is it a big step to have SeaTow run helos with cable lifts?

I have not yet seen a County sheriff helo with a lift. It will be quite a learning curve.

Click to expand...

Back then, the USCG Auxilary also towed in boats, for free. They were volunteers, but the coast guard covered their expenses. President Reagan didn't like the idea of government competing with private businesses and, I believe through executive order, prohibited the USCG from providing those services. Works for me.

We used to have a network of Auxiliaries who did complimentary vessel inspections, towed vessels, and were generally visible locally. They have disappeared and now when there is a disabled vessel you can hear the Coast Guard attempting to find someone to assist without committing themselves to anything more than being the intermediary on the VHF.

The Auxiliary was mostly older (that would be me now) trawler owners who were re-imbursed for their activities (fuel only). Most of the rescue seems to be done these days by commercial fishing vessels once you are out of the harbor area. There is only one commercial tow operator in the area and they are mostly involved in other enterprises than towing, like kayak drop off charters and ferrying people to remote lodges.

It seems that government and regulation has crushed volunteerism, in the name of free enterprise and safety. Kids can't even pick up trash along the roadside anymore without an insurance policy covering them through a parent organization.

Sometimes what we call progress doesn't look like progress...

The USCG's mission has changed over time. They are now under "Homeland Security" and geared more towards keeping drugs and illegal aliens out of the country than assisting recreational boaters.


If your life is in danger, they will try to save you. Your boat, not so much.

The USCG for many years tried to farm out some of or at least part of their mission areas, such as aids to navigation.

Works great till holidays, weekends and storms, then the contractor prices go through the roof.

There are many local, city and state agencies with helps that perform rescues...

The USCG mission profile was heavy into drugs, and illegal immigration all the way back into the late 70s early 80s. The twist now is different for immigration when it comes to terrorisn...but political and economic refugee interdiction I don't believe has changed much since then. Many missions have their roots going back hundreds of years.

Every decade brings new challenges with new emphasis....but even the Homeland Security mostly brought money and with small increases in personal and newer resources made their presence more visable.

Sea Tow and BoatUS do a great job with far less resources in many areas. They also have complemented the government well in search and rescue too.

Makes perfect sense to cut our first line of defense in our perimeter security and spend instead on our military-industrial complex...not!

Follow the dollars; the Coasties don't buy politicians. You don't have to be either a rightie-tightie or a leftie-loosie to see the problem.

Greetings,
I've witnessed government austerity measures first hand. Cut personnel and contract out. Sure, it looks great on paper. Fewer employees, lower payroll but in practice, it's a disaster IMO.

That's a gross oversimplification... How about we have a limited pool of dollars to spend from, the demand for those dollars is growing exponentially? There is a lot more demand for public assistance in all it's forms from medical to food to housing and with no end in sight? Then there's the fact that those dollars don't buy much anymore, it takes ten times more of them to get the same results as it did just a few years ago.

I am always amused by simple answers when it's so complex, and we ignore all of the reasons we don't like or support when we don't get what we want. Of course we are also a tiny percentage of the people wanting to tap into those dollars, that might have something to do with it.

Then there is the litigation world we live in now, where all that has to be done to stop anything from happening is to file a law suit. Fear of law suits is equally responsible for preventing things from happening. There are a lot of posts on this site warning of liability exposure for trying to help someone, and examples of good intentions gone wrong.

Nothing seems to be simple anymore...

WesK said:

The USCG's mission has changed over time. They are now under "Homeland Security" and geared more towards keeping drugs and illegal aliens out of the country than assisting recreational boaters.


If your life is in danger, they will try to save you. Your boat, not so much.

Click to expand...

When originally established in 1790 Congress authorized the Coast Guard to protect the nation's revenue through enforcing tariff laws and preventing smuggling. As the nation grew though, so did the mission-set of the nation's oldest federal sea service.

Today the Coast Guard has eleven statutory missions (listed in order of percentage of total operating expenses):

Ports, Waterways & Coastal Security

Drug Interdiction

Aids to Navigation (ATON: including maintaining the nation's lighthouses, buoys & VTS; also legacy ATON missions including lightships & LORAN)

Search & Rescue (SAR)

Living Marine Resources

Marine Safety

Defense Readiness (National Security & Military Preparedness)

Migrant Interdiction

Maritime Environmental Protection

Polar, Ice & Alaska Operations (including the International Ice Patrol)

Law Enforcement (including Prohibition Enforcement History)

Source: Historical U.S. Coast Guard Missions

And one year ago, + $928 million...

Considering the USCG was recently allocated $928 million MORE than what was asked for, the $1.3 billion cut does not sound as harsh. See the article below from just one year ago.

Congress Boosts Coast Guard Budget

February 2016

The Coast Guard has often been characterized as perennially underfunded, but thanks to Congress, the service received a major boost to its acquisition accounts for fiscal year 2016.

In the recently passed omnibus budget, Congress allocated the Coast Guard nearly $928 million more in acquisition, construction and improvement funding than it asked for in the president’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. That will go toward a ninth national security cutter, a new polar icebreaker and increased funding for the offshore patrol cutter.

The funding increase comes at a time of growing missions for the service. Over the past year, it has taken on a larger role in patrolling the Western hemisphere as smugglers attempt to bring drugs into the United States. Additionally, as sea ice melts in the Arctic and opens up new waterways, the service — which operates the nation’s polar icebreakers — will play a greater role in the region, officials have said.

Congress Boosts Coast Guard Budget

AKDoug said:

We used to have a network of Auxiliaries who did complimentary vessel inspections, towed vessels, and were generally visible locally. They have disappeared and now when there is a disabled vessel you can hear the Coast Guard attempting to find someone to assist without committing themselves to anything more than being the intermediary on the VHF.

The Auxiliary was mostly older (that would be me now) trawler owners who were re-imbursed for their activities (fuel only). Most of the rescue seems to be done these days by commercial fishing vessels once you are out of the harbor area. There is only one commercial tow operator in the area and they are mostly involved in other enterprises than towing, like kayak drop off charters and ferrying people to remote lodges.

It seems that government and regulation has crushed volunteerism, in the name of free enterprise and safety. Kids can't even pick up trash along the roadside anymore without an insurance policy covering them through a parent organization.

Sometimes what we call progress doesn't look like progress...

Click to expand...

AKD:

In Canada, the CC Aux has evolved remarkably alike with our US counterparts. Our CGAux used to be individual owners of older trawlers. would get reimbursed for our fuel usage on an tasked mission if we wanted to do the paperwork. We are now re-branded as the RCMSAR. We have a bunch of high speed RIBs. We do training all year round, no matter the weather, in fact our best training is the RHIOT, done in the winter off of Bamfield, where the weather in the winter is as bad as you can find in the northern hemisphere.
We have a network of Auxiliaries who do complimentary vessel inspections, tow vessels, and are generally visible locally. Our government has failed to crush volunteerism, in the name of free enterprise and safety. Kids can still pick up trash along the roadside without an insurance policy.
I am sure your CGAux is as unhindered as ours.

I am quite proud of our RCMSAR, though a recent SAR member, I have been a Courtesy Examination member for 22 years. Since joining the SAR group on Saltspring Island last summer, I have participated in a rescue that actually saved a life. Nothing can reduce my pride in this organization.