I agree with what President Obama said in his Louisiana speech on Friday June 4th: “It’s brutally unfair. It’s wrong.”  The President was showing his concern about the disruption to the lives of fishermen and others who depend on the Gulf for a living.  And I agree “Its brutally unfair.”  Where we disagree is about what to do about how unfair it is.  History shows that the government won’t be able to make it fair and for lots of people will make it more unfair.

Don’t believe me.  Take a look at the aftermath of Katrina.  The Federal Government has redirected nearly 250 billion dollars from taxpayers to the Gulf States to try to “make it fair.”  And what has happened nobody is happy, people are still living in trailers and are more dependent than ever on the welfare system.  And an even bigger problem is the moral hazard created by the aid.  Why should Louisiana or Wakefield Parrish or you or I bother to buy insurance, build some reserves and have personal evacuation plans in place if we can count on the federal government to bail us out each time.

250 billion dollars is about $250,000 for each person in the affected area.  We have to ask has it been well spent?  Or would it have been better to leave most of the money in the pockets of the taxpayers?

Now we are about to go down the same path again.  I’d like to propose that we have a new national disaster response plan.  It will say that we will all pitch in through the existing government agencies to help in time of a disaster.  But within sixty or ninety days aid will stop.  Let the state and local governments, the businesses and individuals finance and implement the long term recovery.  If they can’t organize it people will move away and and the next disaster will have less human impact.

Why should a bus driver in El Monte, California pay to clean up a beach in Destin, Florida so that an accountant and his family from Washington, DC can have a nice vacation? “It’s brutally unfair. It’s wrong.”