While listening to Professor Rob Young?s talk on fiscally irresponsible coastal policy such as the National Flood Insurance Program, I am reminded of an excerpt from John Stossel?s book ?Give me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.?
In his chapter titled ?Confessions of a Welfare Queen? Stossel explains how easy it is to receive federal aid to rebuild damaged coastal property.
?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.?
