How you don’t run for public office: Part I, starring Rob Maness (Part II might be here).
When asked about his view on allowing
exceptions to having flood rates match risk, Maness said he was against
that before being for it. Recently, the law changed that was designed to
reduce, if not eliminate, subsidization of rates that kept them artificially
low. The problem, from the perspective of a Louisiana federal officeholder, is
that Louisianans disproportionately benefitted from the program, even as it
allowed for some taxpayers to subsidize others, including many families of
middle class and higher lifestyles and income.
Both incumbent Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu and her main challenger
Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy voted
for the legislation. Landrieu said she did under protest because it was
attached to other legislation that enabled money to be spent on recovery from
the oil well blowout disaster of 2010. Cassidy also saw that part of the bill
as salutary, and wanted to put the flood insurance program on solid footing and
available, which it would have lapsed without passage. It has run a deficit,
particularly aggravated by the Louisiana hurricane disasters of 2005 and the
New Jersey hurricane disaster of 2012, in part because the rates badly
underpriced risk for many holders of these policies. Both have offered
legislation that would delay implementation of what they voted for, and in the
fiscal year 2014 budget that last week both
voted for it contains a provision that delays until 2015 these rate
increases regarding some policyholders.
The 2012 vote was a hard vote for
these seasoned politicians, and both received criticism for it. But Maness, who
has lived in the state a short while and is a rookie candidate, on the issue tried
to have his cake and eat it, too. His campaign strategy to date has been to
claim that Cassidy – despite his having
a congressional voting record heavily weighted towards the conservative side
and is more conservative than even the typical House Republican – is not a
principled conservative and sells out too often, and so Maness has tried to
articulate issue preferences he says are based on conservative principles,
including an emphasis on fiscal probity.
Maness argued that he was against
exceptions to slow implementation of the law’s premium schedule, because of the
actuarially unsoundness of the program that has required frequent taxpayer
bailouts. Yet he said if he were in Congress already he would vote for them, because
“we have to do something. We have a moral obligation since we forced people
into the insurance program.”
Which, of course, is exactly
wrong in reasoning. Nobody forced anybody to buy housing in areas that could
flood, regardless of what flood maps said at the time of purchase as it’s so
much common sense; for example, if you live near a river, expect to buy this
kind of insurance. In fact, had the federal government not taken over the flood
insurance business and priced it so unrealistically low in places, this may
have encouraged building and the buying of homes in areas at risk for flooding.
By this logic, Maness should support increased welfare payouts since they are “forced”
to live off of it – never mind that many are able-bodied and could choose to
work or work in better jobs if they change their attitudes and habits.
Maness probably does not support
that, but it’s expository as to how his tactic to try to say he can retain
principle – what allegedly makes him a more conservative candidate than Cassidy
– yet avoid the unpopular consequences of actually following that principle.
And reveals so nakedly that he can pander as well as any politician but so less
effectively, befitting his untested status in politics.
Landrieu and Cassidy can be
blamed by those seeing their rates increase dramatically or by those whose
rates don’t but whose grandfathered status makes their homes much less valuable
to sell, if not unsaleable. They said they had reservations about their votes
to enable this but thought the benefits overall to the country outweighed the
hardships some of their constituents would feel and even after the budget deal are
trying, in different ways, to provide additional rate relief. They aren’t
claiming they acted in a principled fashion, but in a political one.
As opposed to Maness, who says
what sets him apart is principle, but whose only excuse on behaving (if he had
the chance) on this issue is the opposite rests on an invalid argument and a
promise to get the government out of the business by an unspecified “energizing”
of private insurers to provide an affordable market. Naturally, this is a
fantasy; there’s no way risk can be apportioned in a way to make rates for all who
need it not prohibitively expensive unless, as with the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act, everybody is required to have flood insurance, even those
with no flood risk at all. Which means bigger government, which Maness claims
he’s against.
The real
solution is to return to the system prior to the institution of the
National Flood Insurance Program – allow a private market for insurance and
then let government act as a reinsurer through discrete disaster spending bills
as needed. Only this allows a private market to flourish with minimal
government involvement, and also, because there is no guarantee that government
would intervene in every situation, not overly encourage building in risky
areas.
Voters prefer principled
candidates that deviate from them infrequently because they know what they’re
going to get. Less principled candidates can be tolerated because if they can’t
be evaluated on principles, their behavior is predictable in that they’ll do
what’s politically expedient. However, voters scorn most the candidates who
claim they are principled yet act expediently while continuing to try to maintain
they are principled on that issue (and who don't seem to think through the implications of their preferences, as in his preferred flood insurance policy). Maness doesn’t seem to know this, and for a
guy trying to prove he’s a serious candidate, that only promotes the opposite impression.
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