Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Don't encourage Irresponsibility

The Becker-Posner Blog:

"Just because a person loses his house in a flood that destroys hundreds of thousands of other houses, rather than in a fire that destroys just his house, is no reason for the taxpayer to reimburse him for the loss. The fact that most people do not buy flood insurance, just like the fact that most Californians don't buy earthquake insurance, is no reason for me to insure them."
Read the whole thing.

I'm down with his whole argument. I'm looking at the 60+ billion that our lovely congress is pissing away, and I'm thinking -- where is all that money going?

1 comment:

Emily Curtis said...

You'll get no counter-point from me on this one. I also think Becker-Poser were right on.
However, I seem to recall that when we bought our house we were required to buy Flood insurance. It was only after the Flood Zone lines were redrawn that we were no longer required to carry Flood insurance. Is this an unusual practice? or not really required by law? Hmmm. Something to look into I guess.
When you decide not to purchase insurance, you are giving up your right to have that property protected. If the government starts compensating people that could have purchased insurance, I don't see where they would draw the line. Like a comment I saw on the Becker-Posner blog, Will they end up paying college tuition for those that lost their homes and belongings in Katrina? At that point, how could they say no?