DM&E $2.3 Billion Loan: A Businessman’s Nirvana

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has opined on the proposed DM&E expansion in the past, and it does so again today, no doubt in response to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Rochester Coalition and the Mayo Clinic demanding that the Federal Railroad Administration comply with a 10-month-old Freedom of Information Act request for the railroad’s financial particulars.

If the DM&E were a publicly held company, all this information would be readily available to anyone who wanted it. But because the DM&E is privately held, it doesn’t legally have to tell anyone anything except its owners about its finances and the government about its taxes.

The DM&E wants to remain a privately held corporation, and that’s fine. The only problem is that it wants a huge, publicly subsidized loan to expand its operations so that it can compete with two larger, publicly held companies, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroads.

more insideUnder CEO Kevin Schieffer, the DM&E wants all the privileges of remaining a privately held company but also wants all the advantages of taxpayer-funded support. Can he be blamed for wanting the best of all worlds, skimming the cream off the top of both capitalism and socialism?

To achieve this goal is like a businessman’s nirvana. It’s not just having your cake and eating it, too. It’s more like owning the restaurant and having the government pay for everyone’s meals.

But wait; this happens every day in Washington, doesn’t it?

It’s not a question of whether the proposed $2.3 billion loan for the DM&E should or should not be granted. By any objective measurement the idea should have been laughed out of consideration long ago. I can just see the guys in the locker room of the Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls: “Oh, Kevin, that’s a good one! Getting the government to loan you $2.3 billion at low interest rates with no collateral! Ho, ho, ho! I wish I could get such a deal for my bank!”

But Washington works in strange ways, which is why we’re still having to deal with this idiocy after more than a year. And it’s why ranchers in Wyoming, cities in South Dakota, homeowners in Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic have to spend countless amounts of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to bring the federal government to its senses.