Articles
How Federal Failure Impacts You
Washington, DC,
June 3, 2016
Tags:
Accountability
Federal government failures impact each one of us. This was the topic of a recent discussion I led at the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana held its 31st Annual Workshop. Like LSU football in the fall or crawfish boils in the spring, paying for flood insurance is a fact of life for many home and business owners in Louisiana. Most of us are willing to deal with the threat of water because being a Louisianan is worth it. But the steady rise in flood insurance costs across South Louisiana are intolerable, and the fact that federal government failure contributes to those rising costs is unacceptable. The US Corps of Engineers – the federal Rube Goldberg machine responsible for flood protection – is a posterchild for government inefficiency. Its inability to complete projects designed to improve our resiliency hurts our communities and increases our cost of living. In places where flood protection projects have been completed, we’re seeing a downward trend in flood insurance rates – but those places are few and far between. The majority of Corps projects resemble Livingston Parish’s 30-year-old Comite River Diversion Canal project, which still sits incomplete. Later this year, Congress will have the opportunity legislate the change taxpayers deserve through an important waters resources bill. We are working right now on amendments to that bill that will fundamentally change the bureaucracy for the better. If you’d like to learn more or share your ideas about this or other issues, email me. Share your thoughts about this or any other issue by sending me an email.
|