All officials must be clear that the cost of rebuilding should mostly or entirely fall on the owners and operators of the ship, even if the incident was purely accidental.
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore came as quite a shock. After a massive container ship struck one of the bridge’s pillars, the entire span quickly fell apart, costing several lives.
It’s hard to overstate the bridge’s importance, particularly for the automobile industry. In addition to handling 11 million vehicles per year, it provided a vital way for trucks to access the Port of Baltimore while avoiding the dense city core. The impact on the region will be felt for months, if not years.
The question is, what now?
President Joe Biden has said that the federal government would foot the entire bill for rebuilding the bridge and demanded that Congress make it happen.
While the collapse came as a surprise, nobody should be surprised that Biden’s immediate response was to call for more federal spending.
Since taking office, Biden has signed trillions of dollars of spending increases into law and imposed more than $700 billion of additional costs through administrative decisions.
