• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now

chuckiechan

chuckiechan

DP Veteran
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Messages
16,568
Reaction score
7,253
Location
California Caliphate
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now?

Under current law, hurricane-prone homes can file claims year after year and yet continue to be grandfathered as eligible for further taxpayer subsidies after claims are filed.

Hensarling, in a 2017 interview with the Washington Examiner, gave several examples of this, including a $115,000 home in Houston that had cost the NFIP $800,000 thanks to 16 flood claims; a $55,000 home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that had flooded 40 times; and a $90,000 home in St. Louis that cost the program $608,000 after flooding 34 times.
Click to expand...

Most of the hue and cry about “rising seas and newly created weather” is rich people trying to get tax payers to cover losses on their second homes. Few can afford coastal property, and most are uninsurable by the private sector. So who steps up to save them? The taxpayers. I say, end the program and let the beaches return to nature.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
 
Beachfront homeowners are generally rich, so it's good to subsidize them. It will trickle down to the rest of us.
 
Helix said:
Beachfront homeowners are generally rich, so it's good to subsidize them. It will trickle down to the rest of us.
Click to expand...



Tinkle-down.
 
Chuckiechan, on this I think you will find most liberals and conservatives agree. I, personally, don’t see the upside of subsidizing coastal properties, particularly summer homes for the wealthy.
 
chuckiechan said:
Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now?



Most of the hue and cry about “rising seas and newly created weather” is rich people trying to get tax payers to cover losses on their second homes. Few can afford coastal property, and most are uninsurable by the private sector. So who steps up to save them? The taxpayers. I say, end the program and let the beaches return to nature.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
Click to expand...



Congress wrote the NFIP to provide flood insurance where private insurers would not and at the same time restrict floodplain development, requiring exposed communities to adopt land use control measures in flood prone areas or outright prohibition of development. But that’s not how it actually works, especially around Houston, with developers getting whatever allowance they want and the Army Corp of Engineers giving a pass to land use flood control measures. And, of course, insurance cannot be denied no matter how many times a home is lost to flood. They’ve been “talking about” reviewing future land use and current requirements, blah, blah, blah…

It’s all about the developers getting their way to make money, money, money.

Your apologies to Everett Dirksen.
 
chuckiechan said:
Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now?



Most of the hue and cry about “rising seas and newly created weather” is rich people trying to get tax payers to cover losses on their second homes. Few can afford coastal property, and most are uninsurable by the private sector. So who steps up to save them? The taxpayers. I say, end the program and let the beaches return to nature.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the beach house class is also the donor class.

So don't get your hopes up.
 
Geoist said:
Chuckiechan, on this I think you will find most liberals and conservatives agree. I, personally, don’t see the upside of subsidizing coastal properties, particularly summer homes for the wealthy.
Click to expand...

True that you and I agree, a d probably our two could agree, yet in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan:

"A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth."?

We need to start purging these financial black holes.
 
Geoist said:
Chuckiechan, on this I think you will find most liberals and conservatives agree. I, personally, don’t see the upside of subsidizing coastal properties, particularly summer homes for the wealthy.
Click to expand...

One could argue it helps local businesses, but I don't think tax payers should be subsidizing coastal properties either. It's also not just rich people who own coastal properties; middle class people who can buy lower priced beach front condos and such are also in that mix.
 
After the flooding here in Alberta, any homes taking provincial assistance was told it was one and done for replacement at the same location. Quite a few homes were purchased outright and the land to be used for flood mitigation


I can not understand why any federal insurance program in the US does not follow the same system. One use from flooding prevents any further claims for flooding for that property (attached to the land, not the structure). I can understand being forgiving for one instance of stupidity, but to encourage it is idiotic
 
ElChupacabra said:
One could argue it helps local businesses, but I don't think tax payers should be subsidizing coastal properties either.
Click to expand...

I suppose that could be an upside for the businesses in those areas and their government reps. The rest of us shouldn’t really care as those consumers would just be living elsewhere contributing to those local economies.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
After the flooding here in Alberta, any homes taking provincial assistance was told it was one and done for replacement at the same location. Quite a few homes were purchased outright and the land to be used for flood mitigation


I can not understand why any federal insurance program in the US does not follow the same system. One use from flooding prevents any further claims for flooding for that property (attached to the land, not the structure). I can understand being forgiving for one instance of stupidity, but to encourage it is idiotic
Click to expand...

It’s because the federal government is so damn big, no one really has a handle on the checkbook, not to mention what a crying jag people get on when some department stops send them money.

There is an old joke about the Department of Agriculture:

One day a bureaucrat in that arcane agency notice a co-worker crying. He inquired, “Why are you crying?” His coworker said, “My farmer died.” It’s a bad joke, but the joke’s on us.
Click to expand...
 
chuckiechan said:
It’s because the federal government is so damn big, no one really has a handle on the checkbook, not to mention what a crying jag people get on when some department stops send them money.

There is an old joke about the Department of Agriculture:
Click to expand...

The insurance program really should be a state level program rather than federal.


The US government controls a lot of things that in Canada are provincial rather than federal.
 
chuckiechan said:
True that you and I agree, a d probably our two could agree, yet in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan:

"A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth."?

We need to start purging these financial black holes.
Click to expand...




Here's Vilano Beach or as the locals call it, North Beach, in St. Augustine, Florida. This erosion has been going on for years and years. I lived there for 10 years on the little strip of land between the Intercoastal and the Atlantic. I loved it.

Developers have overbuilt the hell out of it now. The once very laidback and semi-isolated freak community is no longer.

I left not too long after they began to overdevelop the narrow peninsula bounded by the intercoastal and the Atlantic and the bay on three sides.

Look at the houses on the beachfront. The tide wasn't at all close to the houses when I moved. Now, year after year, beachfront owners are demanding the county to do something to stop the damage. If you drive down A-1-A on Vilano you'll notice house after house on the beach with For Sale signs. And they can't sell them.

I had the opportunity to buy one of the beachfront homes years ago. No way in hell would I ever do that. It didn't take an oceanographer to know where that tide was going.

Now the county, St. Johns, has committed to spending 50 million dollars to attempt to stop the beachfront erosion.

Insanity.

Glad I'm no longer paying taxes in St. Johns County.
 
Geoist said:
I suppose that could be an upside for the businesses in those areas and their government reps. The rest of us shouldn’t really care as those consumers would just be living elsewhere contributing to those local economies.
Click to expand...

There's definitely a value-add to having beach communities, and if they were to fail it would have a big impact in areas where the tourism it generates is a large revenue stream. However, I think this is a business risk for all involved and we're at a point where coastal damage is frequent enough that we should look at not supporting risky private ventures with public funds. What this means for many urban centers in this regard will be a bigger question; Miami comes to mind since they're probably impacted the most frequently.
 
chuckiechan said:
Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now?



Most of the hue and cry about “rising seas and newly created weather” is rich people trying to get tax payers to cover losses on their second homes. Few can afford coastal property, and most are uninsurable by the private sector. So who steps up to save them? The taxpayers. I say, end the program and let the beaches return to nature.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
Click to expand...

Your source cites homes valued from $55,000-$115,000. This isn’t about rich people.
 
Houston and Baton Rouge don't have beach homes.

Houston is 40 miles from Galveston.

It's a little harder to estimate how far Baton Rouge is from the coast because most of the land to the south is a swamp, but it's roughly a little more than 100 miles from the Gulf.
 
Helix said:
Beachfront homeowners are generally rich, so it's good to subsidize them. It will trickle down to the rest of us.
Click to expand...
Only if we're downhill from the septic tank!
(Good one BTW)
 
Lets use the money set aside for the jack ass's living in California on an earthquake fault line.We shouldn't subsidize them.
 
chuckiechan said:
Can we stop subsidizing beach houses now?



Most of the hue and cry about “rising seas and newly created weather” is rich people trying to get tax payers to cover losses on their second homes. Few can afford coastal property, and most are uninsurable by the private sector. So who steps up to save them? The taxpayers. I say, end the program and let the beaches return to nature.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
Click to expand...

Or, say, a trillion a year to give them tax cuts.

But that's "different", right? Because of the letters next to names?
 
Ain't that the truth. It's those 1%'er Dems that keep telling us lies. Even Obama just bought a mansion in Martha's Vineyard.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom