Republican National Convention Organizers’ Plans For Escape From Storm Include Federally Funded Cruise Ship With “Posh Accommodations”
For Immediate Release. Reporting from Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, Florida. Sunday, August, 26, 2012, 11:05 am.
As the probability rises of a destructive storm slamming Tampa Florida during the GOP National Convention next week, Republicans are not sitting on their hands. They’re working with them. And quickly. And with their well-known business acumen on display.
An RNC application for an emergency federal shipbuilding loan guarantee was approved overnight by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration. Now, a massive effort is underway to provide a safe, effective, and posh escape vessel for conventioneers (See artist renderings below). Explained RNC spokesperson Quince Priebus (no relation to RNC Chairman, Reince Priebus),
“Should the majority of everyday Tampans find themselves underwater next week, we want to provide Republican conventioneers with the treatment they are accustomed to: escape from the reality endured by, for example, everyday Tampans caught in a hurricane. And understand, our escape ark will demonstrate the power of aggressive private enterprise as free of government interference as is practicable and in line with RNC principles!”
Readers should note that it is through the Title XI Federal Ship Financing Program that this project’s financing will be guaranteed. These Maritime Administration loan guarantees are intended to “provide for a full faith and credit guarantee by the United States Government to promote the growth and modernization of the U.S. 
merchant marine and U.S. shipyards,” according to the Maritime Administration. The underlying legislation permits guarantees for up to 87 ½ percent of the actual cost of the ship, and permits loan guarantees, among many other things, for “ferries engaged solely in point-to-point transportation, not less than 75 gross tons, and capable of sustained speed of not less than 8 knots.”
The program, one reporter noted, “nowhere mentions coverage of the production of an ark built solely for the single purpose of transporting conventioneering Republicans to safety from a besieged and underwater city during a declared emergency.”
Mr. Priebus, with finality: “Yes it does. Trust me.”
Your reporter is a trusting soul. The reporter mentioned above is not. He asked again whether the RNC “ark” is “in any way conceivable” the equivalent of a “ferry” under Maritime Administration regulations.
About this, a frustrated Quince Priebus explained,
“our so-called ark is well within the program’s requirements. As you can see from the artist’s conception [above], the design, called an ‘ark’ by ignorant liberal reporters, is indeed within the federal definition of ‘ferry.’ Try to follow this:
We intend to use this craft to ferry our conventioneers on an ark which is a ship, or boat, or craft. Forgive a seasoned businessman’s pun, but it’s all completely above board and within the job-killing anti-business Maritime Administration regulations.”
I followed this reasoning implicitly.
Another rude reporter, though, did not and inquired whether the RNC’s use of a federal program for guaranteeing its ark loan was somehow “galactically hypocritical” for the party, given its “self-serving objections” to nearly all federal grant programs.
In your reporter’s opinion, Mr. Priebus quickly stamped out that pesky brush fire, like water from a fire hose:
“Good God no.”
Pressed on this, – “God,” I thought, “make it stop!” – he explained, as if to a daffy toddler,
“Try again to follow my reasoning: The GOP considers this particular use of tax monies expropriated from the American people as merely a liberation of funds previously looted. Think of it as a recovery – or as they say in the financial industry, a claw back – of ill gotten gains. We are, in the best tradition of liberty, simply releasing our own tax dollars from federal prison.
And, moreover, please note, we, unlike Democrats, will use this federal money wisely. We plan to leverage the monetary value of the Maritime Administration’s 87 ½ percent loan guarantee to permit us to make cruise fee loans to permit up to 350 non-conventioneer everyday Tampans to escape their fair city with us aboard what we shall on Sunday christen as the S.S. Ark-Ferry of Triumph. Those Tampans who desire to join us on our voyage from a Tampa likely to be submerged fathoms deep may thereby do so, and for a cost that is determined by market forces alone. Tickets will be offered at public auction right up until the water level inside the Tampa Convention Center reaches three feet, or the depth equal to the height of the average three year old toddler, whichever comes second.
So, in summary, and for the final time, in the first place, we are merely reclaiming tax money looted from Republicans by the Maritime Administration, secondly, we are performing both a lifesaving service to some 350 Tampans and making money on the deal by leveraging our federal guarantee money through cruise loans to Tampans vulnerable to drowning who make winning bids, and thirdly, Governor Romney will not be releasing any more tax returns. As you can now certainly now see, all this is quite businesslike, quite freedom enhancing.”
“Now that’s a good speech,” I thought. As the persuasively charming Quince Priebus left his lectern, he wheeled around to say, with a twinkle in his eye,
“Can any of you imagine the Democrat party coming up with a business plan like ours?
I thought and thought. No, Mr. Priebus. To me it seemed unthinkable.
More, of course, as the 2012 GOP National Convention progresses towards a catastrophe.
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