The Jones Act Costs All Americans Too Much

Puerto Rico’s post-hurricane plight has drawn attention to the Jones Act, the 1920 law that compels all maritime commerce between U.S. ports to be carried on ships built, owned and crewed by Americans. The law is adding to the island's problems, and should be set aside for that reason alone -- but the Jones Act was, or should have been, a scandal well before the hurricane hit.

What Americans ought to ask is not whether the law should be waived in the long term for Puerto Rico to speed its recovery, but whether its costs are something the country as a whole should tolerate under any circumstances.