Are We Setting a Katrina Precedent?
Congressman Jeff Flake offers up that question in a great op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal ($): bq. In the wake of Katrina/Rita, we risk setting an even more unsustainable precedent that it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that victims of natural disasters are made whole as well. bq. After the next tornado in Kansas or wildfire in Arizona, these communities will assert similar claims on the nation's Treasury, and a compassionate Congress will have no right to ignore their petition. And then? bq. Whether we want to admit it or not, the Republican Congress's failure to discipline itself is sending us all down a flower-strewn path to financial insolvency. That the Democrats would get us there faster should be of little consolation to anyone.
