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GOP Shampoo: Block , Lather, Repeat

by: Jennifer Daler

Sat Apr 03, 2010 at 09:29:21 AM EDT
Senator Tom Coburn, (R-OK) takes up where Sen Jim "Tough Sh*t"  Bunning (R-KY) left off. Coburn and the US Senate Republicans blocked an extension of unemployment benefits.

But it wasn't only unemployment benefits that expired: the same package that the Republicans blocked also included extenders for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). And the critical nature of NFIP was brought into the spotlight this week, as many northeastern states have been battered with record amounts of rainfall, which has led to widespread flooding.

The strategy is to block the benefits, flood insurance, etc. and blame it on the Democrats.

Meanwhile:

According to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, there are 5.5 million flood insurance policy holders in flood plains, and as of this week, homeowners were rendered unable to renew their policies. If any of those homeowners were victims of the current flooding, they will "face complications" filing claims. As Blain Rethmeier, spokesman for the American Insurance Association, put it, "it's unfortunate that the NFIP has fallen victim to the political process":

And where do candidates, Ayotte, Binnie, Bender, Lamontagne, stand? What is more important to them, politics or public service?
Jennifer Daler :: GOP Shampoo: Block , Lather, Repeat
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GOP Shampoo: Block , Lather, Repeat | 4 comments
No, policy holders weren't "rendered unable." Insurers (0.00 / 0)
refused to write policies unless they had a federal government guarantee that they would sustain no loss.
Flood insurance has become a scam.  In 2007 (the latest year for full data) the State of Florida collected $292 billion in federal assistance for flood insurance and we didn't even have any major hurricanes.  Georgia, with a mere 100 miles of coast, collected $15 billion.  Flood insurance is the biggest recipient in both those states.  In New Hampshire, flood insurance is the second largest recipient at just over $1 billion.

http://www.fedspending.org/faa...

Insurance of all kinds (mortgage, savings, health, flood, education, etc) has become the preferred vehicle for funneling federal dollars to banks so they can then lend them back to us to finance the deficit all of these subsidies have caused.

Unregulated insurance companies have become Wall Street's cash cow.

"northeastern states have been battered with record amounts of rainfall" (0.00 / 0)
Senators Gregg, Snowe, Collins, and Brown of Massachusetts, that's your cue.

--
Hope 2012

@DougLindner

It's my impression that policies in flood-prone areas (0.00 / 0)
have been quietly allowed to lapse.  My houses on the Georgia coast are seven feet above sea level.  On one of the houses, I got a notice several years ago that because of a map review, the flood insurance was no longer required by the mortgage holding bank.  Then no offer to renew arrived.  On the other, without any notice, the policy renewal offers just stopped coming.  
Given that the value of the lots had been inflated way beyond what the houses cost in the first place, there'd be no real financial loss, if they were swept away.  Unless, as happened in one part of the island some fifty years ago, the beach-front property just disappeared beneath the waves (the platted lots are still on the property maps).  They've been trucking granite boulders down from the Georgia mountains to build a bulwark against the lapping waves.

One suspects that the conjoining of the money for the unemployed and flood insurance was not a happenstance.  But, Republicans seem quite content to cut off nose to spite face.  

The reference to 5.5 million policy holders in the flood plains is clearly a "limited hangout."  They don't want the conversation to be about the ocean-front development that claims the bulk of the subsidies.

Louisiana is another good example of where federal dollars were/are going.  Of $103 billion total, in 2007, $75 billion went to flood insurance and the next biggest chunk, $4 billion, went to Social Security, along with another $4 billion for community block grants.  Florida got $292 billion that year.  And $700 billion in state and local government grants is outrageous!!!  Will increase the deficit!!!!!

http://www.fedspending.org/faa...

[ Parent ]
2005 (0.00 / 0)
Washington Republicans haven't shown themselves sympathetic to flooding.

--
Hope 2012

@DougLindner

[ Parent ]
GOP Shampoo: Block , Lather, Repeat | 4 comments

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