Maine thought the weight of common sense had crushed an absurd Clinton administration proposal to collect fees from people crossing the international border. Not so. It’s back.

This time, it’s the Senate Judiciary Committee considering a charge of $1-per-head for every person crossing a U.S. border as part of immigration legislation. The president … congressional budgeteers, it doesn’t matter who proposes it, it’s still a mistake.

Last winter, President Clinton suggested turning customs stations into drive-thrus for the U.S. treasury. Cars entering the country from Mexico and Canada would be charged $3, people $1.50. The income was to be used to offset the cost of bolstering border enforcement to keep illegal aliens out.

The presidential proposal was not quite penny-ante, but close to it in the context of a $1.6 trillion budget. Deeper and more disturbing than its failure as fiscal strategy, it was a flop as public policy. There would be losses incurred by erecting turnstiles in northern, border states to generate revenue to support surveilance along the frontier with Mexico.

Northern residents and their congressional delegations pointed out that it would impact hard on families who cross the border each day to work, shop or visit relatives. It would inconvenience and discourage day trips by Canadians to U.S. malls, accelerating the worrisome decline in cross-border shopping.

It also was counter to U.S. philosophy on international trade and commerce, which emphasizes a free-flow of people and goods. The Canadian government predicted the fee would be a drag on bilateral expectations, from tourism to the North American Free Trade Agreement. It would chip at the bedrock relationship between the U.S. and Canada, countries that share the world’s longest undefended boundary.

None of those circumstances has changed. As Sen. William Cohen pointed out to his colleagues in Judiciary recently, 70 percent of land border crossing are made by people who enter this country more than 100 times a year to connect with jobs, friends or family. It is a selective tax, “a federal penalty for living in a border community,” Cohen argues.

President Clinton backtracked last winter, suggesting the fees be optional. The proposal then went underground. It now has resurfaced in the Senate, and has been made worse by modifications. Frequent-crosser discounts are a gimmick that won’t change the nature of beast. It’s still a tax. They will, however, guarantee that the feds won’t raise enough money to make the program profitable.

Border-crossing fees, like poll taxes, simply are a bad idea and a negative influence on U.S.-Canadian relations. Making them optional could create confusion, as some states opt in and others opt out, but can never make these fees fair or palatable as public policy.