The House passed legislation on Friday that allows the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to take on $9.7 billion in new debt to help meet claims related to Hurricane Sandy.
Members easily passed the bill in a 354-67 vote — the only “no” votes came from Republicans. A two-thirds majority was needed for passage.
“No” votes included Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Committee chairman and former vice presidential candidate, who said after the vote that Washington should not be creating new debt.
Club for Growth opposed the vote in a blog post today, and added that the vote would be counted in the Club’s congressional scorecard:
Congress should not allow the federal government to be involved in the flood insurance industry in the first place, let alone expand the national flood insurance program’s authority.
As we have said in a previous key vote alert, the proper way to address disaster relief is to release the funds in installments to make sure the resources are spent wisely. They should also strip out all immaterial line items, and fully offset all expenditures with spending cuts elsewhere. Serious reform would also include a way for the states to take over the responsibility for future disaster relief funding so that accountability is more localized.