why should taxpayer pay for destroyed homes

Why should taxpayer pay when people build homes right on the coast where every few years a hurricane wipes homes down to the slab.
If people want to build in right on the coast where hurricanes and storm surge wipe there homes off the face of the earth that's there problem. But the taxpayer should not have to pay a cent for there stupidity.

Why should we pay for a place for them to live till they rebuild and make gov loans for them.
Just about every year we see this stupidity.

If you want to build a home in a place like this either take you chances.
or build a hurricane proof home

I totally agree, and there are places where you can build your home way above sea level but no house is safe from a disaster though, with that said the thing is as time goes on and especially the last 5 years and beyond, it has been proven, arguments as to why and what the government can do with our money are useless, they will do whatever they wish no matter how much complaining is done about what they do with taxpayer dollars which is unfortunate, this generally applies to state, local and the Federal government, once you have paid your taxes it is essentially theirs to budget, waste, misappropriate and spend.

I believe in the two strikes rule. The first time is a given in case of a fluke. But after the second time, if someone insists on living in a disaster prone zone, they do it at their own buck.
I do feel for people who want to stay where they have always lived. But this isn't about getting what you want. I would love to live in my hometown, but I can't because the economy there is really bad. Nothing entitles you to live where you want. If so, we would all be in Malibu.

What is insurance for if the Gov. allocates tax funds to such a disaster? Not only are the CEO's handsomely rewarded with bonuses, huge salaries, stock options, and the like yet they tap the citizens when it comes time to payout, while premiums are going through the roof.

Awhile back, I went in to my agent to add a vehicle to my home/auto policy. The agent that originally wrote it was no longer at the brokers and after finding and reviewing my policy, the new agent was flabbergasted at the low premium I was paying. After adding the vehicle, I left.
the following month, I received a letter stating I needed to start a new policy because this agency no longer delt with the particular insurer I had and my new premium through a different insurer was doubled. I declined and contacted the insurer directly. Since policy was that I needed an agent to use them and no agent in town now wrote policies under this insurer, I went to another agency and although it was about 1-1/2 times my old rate, it was still better than the weasels that screwed me when I woke up the sleeping dog they were prior to adding a vehicle. One of the vehicles was a sports car that I had never been cited for any infraction or other, but, my woman, just a few weeks prior, drove it for the first time and got a 45 in a 25 right by our house. She said, "It didn't seem like I was even doing 25!".

After my policy was sent to the new insurer, I recieved a letter stating that, although the agent set the policy and took my money, they refused to insure the sports car because of "Tendencies of this model known to reach excessive speeds and due to the infraction they refused to insure it at any price".

I had to get a seperate policy elsewhere for that vehicle.

Later, I moved and when I contacted my agent to give the new address, I was told my rate would be triple. I have nothing on my record for driving, wrecks, accidents or other, except the infraction my woman had in that car. I asked why with my record this would be going down. I was told they go by zip code, not driving record.

Now, with that tripled rate, I was paying 3-1/2 times more in premiums than with my old policy. So I canceled and went to a different agent and got a little better rate, but it was still over twice what I was paying at the time.

Later that year, I didn't recieve a renewal notice, so I called the agent to see what was up. I was told they had no record of my policy. Evidently, they had an office fire and all their files were destroyed. I went down there with my copy and they acknowledged my policy, but refused to renew it because they had a new policy that I couldn't write my woman because we wern't married and I was the only one on the titles.

I went to DOL and added her to all the titles and had additional personal coverage added to my business insurance.

The guy who wrote that policy evidently didn't last the rest of the month, and I was notified that the premium he had quoted was wrong, so I again had to pay higher rates.

I kept on them and finally got them to fax a copy so I could have proof in the vehicles, and just in time too. My woman and I that night went for a drive in a car I was going to give her if she wanted it. She drove and we got pulled over for bad tabs, although it was the last month of the sticker and I assumed we had till the end of the month.

Come to find out that it expires on the date that it was issued, somewhere in the middle of the month. So,

He gave us a warning since we hadn't even decided whether to change the title. Then he asked for proof of insurance. We gave him the copy the agent had issued, but there was no expiration date on the insurance card so we were told it was not considered valid proof, and he wrote a no insurance citation.

After I contacted my agent and told them what happened, they sent another proof of insurance by fax with expiration dates.

We went to the courthouse to show we were in fact insured to dismiss the citation, which they prompty did, after I gave them the $50.00 fee charged for their effort. This was called a filing fee.

Anyways, to make a long story short, I moved recently and was going to use a medical insurer I had some years before. Although they had my info from my old number, I couldn't do the plan I had a few years ago, so I went through their plans which had been sent earlier this summer when I put my daughter on prior to the move because she was staying with relatives and also had taken a trip out of the country.

When I decided on the one I was going to sign, I called them yesterday and found out that they no longer offered those plans. The new ones started August 1st, and for the same coverage, the premium was double the cost of the plan I wanted that was no longer offered as of July 31. I couldn't believe it.

So, I now intend to shop around before I commit to this extortionistic type of sevice and policy changing tactics.

I just hope that when I do sign a new plan that should I really ever need the coverage, (knock on wood), that I recieve the care I will now be overpaying for.

Maybe the insurers in the weather stricken areas should step up to the plate now, huh?

Why should taxpayers fund the rebuilding of houses after a disaster? Isn't that really just a subset of the question of why taxpayers should fund anything at all?

Isn't the purpose of paying taxes to pool society's resources in such a way to allow us to do things that no one of us could do individually (e.g. building roads, funding an army, etc.)? I think it all comes down to what kind of society we wish to have. We fund shelters because none of us wants to see large numbers of homeless people wandering the streets. We fund school lunch programs because we do not want to be the kind of country where children starve to death.

Is it wise for the government to assist people in rebuilding their homes in disaster-prone areas? Probably not. Is it any wiser to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a pointless war in Iraq? Or to bail out an insurance company that gambled it's future on unwise investments in the sub-prime mortgage market?

If I didn't have the government spending my tax dollars in "stupid" ways then I suppose I'd have more of them around to spend on my own stupid stuff......iPhone anyone?

I was just discussing this with a buddy of mine.

If my house burns down and I am stupid enough not to have insurance... I am screwed.

Why do these people get bailouts just because a bunch of other people got their homes destroyed at the same time as they did? why is this any different from the tragedies that befall individuals every day?

reply to post by total_slacker

Isn't the purpose of paying taxes to pool society's resources in such a way to allow us to do things that no one of us could do individually (e.g. building roads, funding an army, etc.)? I think it all comes down to what kind of society we wish to have. We fund shelters because none of us wants to see large numbers of homeless people wandering the streets. We fund school lunch programs because we do not want to be the kind of country where children starve to death.

Um. All of those things are for the PUBLIC to use. So, if my tax money goes to pay for your house that you chose to build in a hurricane zone, does that mean I can use said house anytime I want? After all, it realy is partly my home since I paid into it.

People need to be held accountable for their own lives and their own actions. Just like people are not allowed to build homes in a FLOOD zone, they should not be allowed to be houses in a hurricane zone. And if they do, they should be 100% accountable for anything that happens. THAT is what insurance is for.

I absolutely love the beach. I hope to live at a beach full time, eventually. However, I will NOT be wasting my money buying/building a home in an area that is KNOWN for getting destroyed by hurricanes. That would be just pure ignorance.

So, nope, our tax money - money we work hard for and is taken from us - should NOT go to these people who choose to live there. Period.

Whoops....dang dial up Dup post

[edit on 9/19/2008 by greeneyedleo]

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
reply to post by total_slacker

 

Um. All of those things are for the PUBLIC to use. So, if my tax money goes to pay for your house that you chose to build in a hurricane zone, does that mean I can use said house anytime I want? After all, it realy is partly my home since I paid into it.

For public use? Really? So if you take a liking to the sandwich just served to the kid in the school lunch program you would feel free to walk up and claim your share? Government utilizes public funds to assist private individuals all the time. I don't want to belabor that point by making any kind of exhaustive list, but government backed student loans, incentive programs to buy hybrid cars, a $10,000 tax credit applicable towards adoption expenses......there are really lots of ways that individuals tap into those funds.

My point was simply that as a society we choose, through a theoretically representative system of government, how those funds are to be spent. Whether we choose to have that money spent on scientific research seeking a cure for cancer, on building the necessary infrastructure to entice a football team to stay one more year in a city when they'd rather move to a more lucrative market, or even, yes, even to bail out people who perhaps have fallen victim to their own less than perfect decision-making - that is our collective choice to make.


If the requirement is that people must choose to live in non-disaster-prone areas then the midwest (tornado alley), California (wildfires), and New England (blizzards) will have to be pretty much emptied, or else the folks there should expect no assistance either.

As it happens I live about 1/2 mile from the beach, but I will be depending primarily on my insurance and not on government assistance. There hasn't been a hurricane here in over 40 years, but still my insurance rates are sky high because this is Florida, and everyone knows what a hurricane target that place is. Should a storm come through here and damage my home, however, I WILL take advantage of whatever government assistance is available to me. That is part of what I hope to get for my tax money.

No way we should be paying for individuals homes that were built yards from the freaking ocean for crying out loud. I mean after all, we’ve got millionaires to bail out of their bad investments in mortgage and insurance companies.