Eric Baerren

The big news today coming out of Lansing is that the city government of the Capital City will ink a deal with a tribe from the Upper Peninsula to expand casino gambling. I’ll spare you the predictable joke about legalized gambling in the state’s capital city, at least until the next paragraph.

Monday morning, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero lauded the agreement as a way to anchor downtown Lansing and stimulate economic activity. He even said it will be built with a union workforce, a feather tossed to construction workers who during the mayor’s tenure have had no love lost for him (rumblings from within held that during the 2010 gubernatorial race they preferred Bernero’s Democratic opponent, Andy Dillon, a milksop of a House Speaker who is now state treasurer).

If plans go forward, the casino will be a few short blocks from the Capitol, giving lawmakers on marathon sessions gambling the state’s future on ideas that have never held up when put into practice – we call this fiscal conservatism – an opportunity to legally wager away yet more taxpayer dollars at the poker tables.

At least it will keep them out of the downtown bars.

This is the same Bernero who over the years has made a national spectacle out of himself shouting on whatever television show would have him about the casino-like atmosphere of Wall Street and how it’s devastated the working families of Main Street. It was his chief pitch during his run in 2010. In fact, the sole piece of substantive policy to come from his wretched, still-born campaign was a state bank intended to loosen the purse strings of credit for small businesses because the casino-like mentality of Wall Street had frozen them. Now, he plans to build a temple honoring the spirit of Wall Street with the help of organized labor.

Irony. Sweet, delicious irony.

The announcement was made with the usual hoopla that accompanies these things – the twin spigots of roulette and blackjack will soon open, and cash will flow to everyone. Before a dime has rolled in or the plan has even received the approval of federal regulators, they’ve already spent much of the winnings on a scholarship program modeled on the Kalamazoo Promise. Five years hence, every child who graduates from the Lansing public schools will go to college for free. It will be a remarkable day, once they start collecting the money to make it happen.

No greater irony exists, however, in that the city of the state’s capitol for decades was chiefly known for making things, rather than being the center of state government.

Lansing’s long, storied manufacturing past gave Bernero’s ravings the hint of legitimacy. He did come from a car-making town with a rich tradition as one of America’s great middle-class cities.

Well, that would be gone if the plan goes through. Casinos aren’t places where things are made. They’re places where people from elsewhere come to stuff their hard-earned money into the pockets of the casino’s owners. What the town gets is a kickback for providing the venue where the transaction takes place.

That ought to make Wall Street happy. The bulldog of Main Street, at the end of the day, is really just one of them.

© 2012 North Star Writers Group

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