And the question is, if you suffer such a disaster and have no insurance, will Uncle Sam ride to the rescue with tax dollars? We know the answer. But why the different treatment?
There is plenty of room to debate whether it is the proper role of government (and the Federal government in particular) to aid in re-building areas devastated by Sandy (and Katrina, and other storms/earthquakes/etc.). But the simple reason there is different treatment of major natural disasters like Sandy on the one hand, and individual houses being struck by lightning on the other, is that the destruction of an entire geographic region (including one of the largest financial centers in the world, and one of the busiest seaports on the east coast) has a much greater economic impact than the destruction of a single house.
How about we cancel all these corporate subsidies to “green” and other companies and ethanol and spend some of that on disaster relief?