Congressional Issues 2006
MORALITY AND CULTURE
Disaster Assistance and Government Insurance
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Congress should
- require federal government insurance
programs to use private-sector underwriting and risk classification
techniques,
- authorize tax-deferred treatment of private
insurers’ catastrophe reserves, and
- reduce the scope of current government
insurance programs and not launch any new federal reinsurance schemes.
Did "We the People" write a Constitution
which gave the federal government the responsibility to rebuild thousands of houses and
businesses which were built below sea level between the ocean and the Mississippi
River? Who could know that a home built below sea level might get wet? Who could guess
that building a business in
"tornado alley" might be asking for disaster? Who could possibly
predict that building a hotel in the path of a hurricane could be
risky? What psychic could foresee any problems from constructing a
house at the base of a volcano like Mt. St. Helens? Could anyone in
California have ever imagined that an earthquake might level their home?
Is it the business of the federal government to repair the damage done to
a beach front home in Malibu every year, year after year, as the winter
rains repeatedly erode the shore, and the wealthy owner repeatedly rebuilds the
home on the same spot?
America became the greatest nation on
earth by cultivating "Yankee Ingenuity" and personal
responsibility, not by clamoring for government bailouts.
America became the greatest nation on
earth by responding quickly and magnanimously to genuine disasters and
human needs.
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