Posted on 09/09/2005 8:21:41 AM PDT by Pessimist
My Life as a Welfare Queen
In 1980 I built a wonderful beach house. Four bedrooms -- every room with a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was an absurd place to build, right on the edge of the ocean. All that stood between my house and ruin was a hundred feet of sand. My father told me: "Don’t do it; it’s too risky. No one should build so close to an ocean."
But I built anyway.
Why? As my eager-for-the-business architect said, "Why not? If the ocean destroys your house, the government will pay for a new one."
What? Why would the government do that? Why would it encourage people to build in such risky places? That would be insane.
But the architect was right. If the ocean took my house, Uncle Sam would pay to replace it under the National Flood Insurance Program. Since private insurers weren’t dumb enough to sell cheap insurance to people who built on the edges of oceans or rivers, Congress decided the government should step in and do it. So if the ocean ate what I built, I could rebuild and rebuild again and again -- there was no limit to the number of claims on the same property in the same location -- up to a maximum of $250,000 per house per flood. And you taxpayers would pay for it.
Thanks.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Just another example of the rampant, tax-payer funded (what isn't?) socialist programs our politicians in Washington CONTINUE to support for votes. The welfare lifestyle is still running rampant...thanks to Washington, DC.
Flood insurance is a great thing in most floodplain areas-these are places that might flood three or four times a century!
But in a place like New Orleans...
What I want to know is why private flood insurance wasn't offered? I mean, not in NOLA, but in places that might flood twice a century?
Don't blame the politicians. We, the people, are the ones who keep supporting these programs.
I read the article when it came out and thought it was very informative. I read Reason mag on a regular basis. There is some stuff in it that wouldn't sit well with social conservatives.
Stossel is dead on.
I dont think so.
He is talking about Corporate welfare queens and Farmer welfare queens and all the people in CA who keep building on the SanAndreas fault line and building in areas that they know will burn baby burn , and the people who will keep building in NO below sea level.
And we taxpayers allow them to rebuild knowing we will have to pay again and again, just like FL that gets the majority of hurricanes, wanna bet we all have paid for and bought homes there again and again? WE prob own FL by now.Same with CA we have purchased their million dollar mansions over and over again
WHY? Here is the answer:
This isn't spamming this bears repeating till someone "GETS IT"!
"We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.
Davy Crockett speaking to Congress that they have no right to treat federal money (FEMA) as if it were donated charity money.
Great piece by Stossel. He was on O'Reilly the other night (just happened upon it, can't stand O'Reilly anymore).. he's a great champion for small government ideals.
His point is well taken too, as much as I can't stand socialization in inner cities, I can't stand farm subsidies, et al.. almost as equally as I can't stand it when people are on the dole when they are able bodied adults.
I am sure flood insurance was offered. I do mortgage lending and a good portion of my business is beach homes. You can buy private flood insurance. But it often is more than your mortgage payment.
The government flood insurance isn't cheap anymore. I had a quote about 10 years ago. It was over $1200 for 250K of insurance (plus 100K in theory of contents coverage).
However the contents coverage is terrible. They only pay actual cash value. If your house has a basement, nothing in it is covered, except the furnace and the water heater.
I don't know if there has been a change in the way it is funded (e.g. effort to make it more self-supporting) or if this just reflects a succession of natural disasters that has forced sharp increases in the premium.
That is the one flaw in the US Constitution because the Founders didn't sufficiently anticipate the problem to try to stop it. They should have enumerated the uses for which Congress could appropriate or transfer funds. Oh, you'd still have some states benefitting more from others because of necessary federal facilities like naval bases, the distribution of government contracts to build ships and other things, and such but you wouldn't have the primary purpose of the federal government being the redistribution of trillions of dollars between the states.
I also do mortgages and have never seen a private flood policy.
Then again, in Ohio there aren't many houses (<5% maybe) in flood zones.
He is a flaming Libertarian.
We the people don't support these programs..it doesn't matter who we vote for, they all allow these sort of things, no matter if they have an R or a D after their names.. a politician by any other name.
How horrible! He must be worse than Hitler!
ping
I don't see how you can compare a Libertarian to Hitler?
He had a whole special about this a few years ago.
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