Mending the Piggy Bank

11/21/2005

Paul Munnis

For decades the U.S. Government has been throwing good money after bad in the Gulf region of America. Every year storms lash Florida, evacuations happen, properties are destroyed, and the Federal Government declares it a disaster area and then Congress opens its wallet to rebuild the ravaged communities. We rush to rebuild the flood zones. Annually we pay out billions of dollars that the next year are wasted again as flood waters reclaim the lands.

This year, hurricanes Katrina and Rita have again lashed the coastal region but did so just a little off the beaten track thus demolishing the City of New Orleans and the western part of the gulf region.

The costs of rebuilding New Orleans to the old model just aren’t worth it and rebuilding in flood zones is just plain stupid. This rebuilding in flood zones, no matter where we are speaking of in America, is bad fiscal policy.

It’s just as true in Minnesota’s Red River Valley as it is in the reclaimed swampland of Florida. Convert the flood land into public use properties for parks and recreation, unless private enterprise wants to invest and if they do, then do not insure them.

It’s time for FEMA and the Federal Government to change the dynamics and the time to do it is right now.

Should we rebuild the levees in New Orleans – “Yes.” Should we invest even five cents in rebuilding anything, including infrastructure in the flood zones on the dry side of the levees where it is below sea level – “No.”

City planners in New Orleans will have to turn the flood lands into playgrounds, golf courses, and disposable space, because the taxpayers cannot afford to give them a new city. The old one was a planning disaster anyhow. They are blessed with a fresh start and it needs to be built in a place where the taxpayers don’t need to keep bailing them out. Louisiana politicians will just have to cry in their beer over it.

Ditto for Florida. We know that Jeb Bush won’t like hearing that, but that’s how it is. And it also goes all along the Atlantic coastal region and the inland areas too, especially those river bottom lands. We need to say “No” to further Federal Flood insurance.

If the Gulf region cities, including those in Florida, are in need of flood insurance, then self-insure yourselves. Take some of your state money, form a “Gulf Region Insurance Company,” and sell insurance to your residents who want it. The taxpayers should be through with subsidy of flood zones.

It’s one thing to be helping people who are storm victims it’s another thing to be subsidizing cities that are badly zoned, poorly located, and in locations that Mother Nature seeks to reclaim annually. We are not Holland and we should stop pretending that we are.

It’s time for Congress to get its act together and to tell the bad news that the wallet is closed to insuring flood zones. The time is now.