The conflict between the coalition forces of the Detroit River International Crossing and businessman Matty Moroun’s Detroit International Bridge Company over where and by whom a new bridge to Canada (at least it’s to somewhere) will be built continues to be less drama than Theater of the Absurd.
The preference of Canadians for a more direct link to their Hwy 401 than a second span adjacent to the aging Ambassador Bridge is understandable. The southern end of the busiest connection between their country and ours has perpetually ensnarled downtown Windsor in commercial and leisure traffic.
What is more than a little disconcerting, however, is the obsession of their DRIC allies on this side of the border with the alternative location.
At a time when our leaders in Lansing, having exhausted accounting gimmicks, are struggling mightily to find ways to keep the state budget in the black (as is constitutionally required) what could possibly make them so hell-bent on spending $5 billion on a project that could be obviated by one that Ambassador Bridge owner, Moroun, wants to build with his own money? The DRICkers of both parties in Lansing and throughout metro Detroit have thrown every imaginable roadblock in front of the DIBiCks — so insistent are they that taxpayers bear this expense!
The thinly-veiled justification for this crusade was, until recently, that so vital a facilitator of international intercourse ought to belong to “the people” of Michigan, rather than permitting it to be held in private hands. Of course, $5 billion is a lot of money for bragging rights. So the publicly proffered rationale was trepidation over security. This, too, however, was less than compelling, given both that the existing span has always been privately owned and operated, and that federal officials — upon whom responsibility for securing our borders actually rests (though, admittedly, their competence in this regard has of late been under significant fire) — have never regarded private ownership to present the slightest impediment to creating and enforcing tomes of rules and regulations.
Now, even the “sovereignty” fig leaf has fluttered away. Ontario politicians, anxious to get the project moving forward — in their preferred location – have offered to have their taxpayers also cover Michigan’s half of the cost and fund the entire project themselves.
All erstwhile concerns among our own politicians have evaporated. No surprise. What actually is, and always was, at work here is a hostility to entrepernurielism so pervasive and profound that they find ceding ownership to a foreign government preferable to leaving it, even nominally, in the hands of a private, American citizen.
What would our founders have thought of that?
Now the Dricks have begun to chant the old “job, jobs, jobs” mantra to stress the urgency of the project. And though the employment won’t be permanent (presuming that even government construction will eventually be completed), at least there will be a substantial number of workers employed. Since, apparently, we’re to infer that the selfish (albeit, very hardworking) private owner, Moroun, must be planning to build his bridge single-handedly.
I have never understood why the State and Moroun can’t agree to have him build and own the new bridge on the site the State and Canada prefer. This would eliminate the Constitutional issues about the State and Canada making an agreement. Then the State could tax the new bridge and ease the budget crisis.