UPDATED: Good Morning Suckers – You are paying Mike Castle’s flood insurance premiums, and you are going to keep paying them

Filed in National by on March 5, 2014

Mike Castle can sleep in his beach house soundly knowing that you are on the job heavily subsidizing his choice to live next to the unpredictable Atlantic Ocean totally risk free. You feel good about yourself, right? Castle deserves his sound sleep.

Actually, I’m not crazy about the set up. I happen to think that people who decide to live in flood plains should shoulder the risk of that reckless behavior. It is the one area of common ground I had with teabags, and it was the one positive outcome from the Democratic Party’s adoption of austerity mania. We can’t afford to cover Mike Castles flood risk, nor should we have to. For a while it looked like we were going to get out from under having to pay Mike Castle’s beach house flood insurance premiums, but now it looks like that ain’t happening.

For the majority of people who participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, the first set of federally mandated reforms will have little or no impact. But those who will see a change are in for some major sticker shock.

The Biggert-Waters Reform Act of 2012 seeks to end subsidies. But even as the reforms are implemented, what lies ahead for the act remains to be seen. The U.S. Senate has passed a measure requiring a four-year delay on implementation that would in essence kill the law, which is due to expire in 2017. The U.S. House has yet to take up the Senate’s bill, but even one of the law’s sponsors, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is pushing for a three-year delay.

If the legislation is not changed, over the next few years, most subsidies will be eliminated, said Richard Sabota, Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 3 insurance specialist, during a Feb. 21 workshop at the CHEER Center in Georgetown.

I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATE: Thehill.com provides a little insight into why you will continue to pay Mike Castle’s insurance premiums:

Trade groups in Washington won a major victory Tuesday as the House passed a bipartisan deal on federal flood insurance.

Groups representing builders and realtors had lobbied hard for a legislative fix for the program, warning that a spike in premiums threatened to spread economic pain across the country and dampen the housing recovery.

With the deadline for action approaching, the House was on Tuesday night approved legislation that would repeal reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that Congress passed just two years ago.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/199876-behind-flood-bill-a-torrent-of-lobbying#ixzz2v6lkOa1O
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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (20)

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  1. cassandra m says:

    It is interesting, right? That people who would piss and moan about the government spending money it doesn’t have would be completely up in arms to make sure that this broke ass government is making sure that they don’t have to live with the risks of living at the water.

  2. Jason330 says:

    And, worse yet, we are paying premiums for climate change denialists.

    With everything we know about climate change “flood insurance” isn’t even remotely logical from an insurance perspective.

    There is no cross subsidy from low probability parcels to high probability parcels. Every policy has a 100% probability of an eventual claim within 20 years.

  3. SussexAnon says:

    The Federal Flood Insurance Program has been operating in the red for years.

    Democrats own beach homes (and homes in flood prone areas) too. This isn’t about subsidizing those evil rich white republicans. Everyone is on the welfare gravy train.

  4. Jason330 says:

    That’s why I don’t think it is going away.

  5. Steve Newton says:

    It ain’t going away.

    That said, it should never have existed in the first place.

  6. Geezer says:

    ” Everyone is on the welfare gravy train.”

    No, only everyone who owns a house in a flood zone.

  7. mediawatch says:

    Beach replenishment, flood insurance, all on the federal dime. Why expect otherwise for the Nation’s Summer Capital?

  8. Black Cobain says:

    What does Castle have to do with this, besides the fact that he has a beach house?

  9. Jason330 says:

    He has a beach house, and I tried to think of the one person who didn’t deserve to have his insurance premiums paid by tax payers.

  10. roddyflynn says:

    Why? Because he’s a Republican? (Not being contrary or challenging, I genuinely don’t understand the joke).

  11. Jason330 says:

    I don’t mind contrary or challenging. But yes, because he is a Republican. Also, because he never earned a non-taxpayer sponsored dollar in his adult life. Also, I don’t like him and haven’t had many opportunities to dislike him publicly lately. If I keep thinking about it I can probably come up with more reasons.

  12. mediawatch says:

    You’re stretching a bit, Jason.
    Castle made a decent amount of non-taxpayer-sponsored dollars when he was co-owner of the Bottle & Cork (hey, you wouldn’t hold that against him, would you?) and he was also partner in a law firm for several years with a very good D named Carl Schnee.
    Fair enough to pick on Mikey as a beneficiary of beach replenishment, etc., but he hasn’t been lapping at the public trough for his entire life.

  13. jason330 says:

    You say tomato, I say tomato.

  14. SussexAnon says:

    ” Everyone is on the welfare gravy train.”

    No, only everyone who owns a house in a flood zone.

    –Yep, including Democrats in Wilmington. But that wouldn’t be a sensational headline, now would it?

  15. Jason330 says:

    You seem happy to be paying Mike Castle’s flood insurance premiums. That’s your right. It is a free country.

  16. anon says:

    Both the Senate bill, S 1926 and the House bill, HR 3370 were introduced by Democratic legislators (Menendez in the Senate and Grimm in the House), pushed by Democratic legislators, and passed with only one Democratic Senator voting NO (Senator Tom Carper, you love him, right?) and only 5 House Democrats voting NO (John Carney was a co-sponsor in the House, BTW).

    If you’re pissed off about this legislation put that anger where it belongs, on the Congressional Democrats, this was their bill, Castle has been gone for 4 years now, it’s time for you to move on.

  17. Jason330 says:

    Jeebus, the Castle lovers are coming out of the woodwork.

  18. anon says:

    One more thing, Jason, Federal Flood Insurance isn’t just for the rich beach areas, the Town of Newport, Delaware is in the flood plain, so is the Christina River watershed and the St. Johns River watershed in Kent. The entire Town of Lewes is NOT in the flood plain, and neither is the majority of Rehoboth Beach proper.

    Damn those fat cats in Newport, sitting in their mansions, sucking off of the government teat, eh?

  19. Jason330 says:

    We’ll have to agree to disagree about who is the welfare cheat in this case. You will never convincer that Mike Castle’s premiums should be paid be taxpayers.

  20. anon says:

    I have bad news for you, Castle’s house isn’t in the flood plain, I checked the FEMA map, so he doesn’t have federal flood insurance. But those caviar eating, champagne swilling, mansion dwellers in Newport still are.