Uncle Sam is essentially broke.  But the federal government keeps spending.  The House is voting this week on a measure already adopted by the U.S. Senate to suspend money-saving reforms adopted less than two years ago.

In 1968 Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program, shifting the cost of disasters from people who chose to live in flood-prone areas to taxpayers who don’t.  Over time Congress kept cutting premiums.  By 1982 two-thirds of participants received a subsidy.

NFIP turned into foolishness squared.  The first cost is financial:  the federal government keeps insurance premiums low for people who choose to build where they otherwise wouldn’t.  The Congressional Research Service figured that the government charges about one-third of the market rate for flood insurance.  The second cost is environmental:  Washington essentially pays participants to build on environmentally-fragile lands that tend to flood. 

Uncle Sam also has a propensity to spend billions more to rebuild public buildings and infrastructure in flood zones. 

Although not every NFIP beneficiary is wealthy, CRS noted:  “Some critics point out that the costs—financial risk and ecological damage—are widely distributed to taxpayers across the country and the benefits, by contrast are disproportionately enjoyed by wealthy counties and by owners of vacation homes.”

NFIP’s overall liability is $1.3 trillion.  Today total program debt is about $25 billion.  Economists Judith Kildow and Jason Scorse warned that “the flood insurance program is a fiscal time bomb for the government.” 

So disastrous were the program’s finances that even Congress felt the need to act.  In July 2012 legislators approved the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act in an attempt to make the NFIP more accurate, efficient, and solvent.  For different properties rates were increased and subsidies were cut.  Overall, the legislation was expected to save about $25 billion.

The amendment worked—too well.  Insurance bills began increasing.  People used to living well at taxpayer expense complained to their legislators.  Interest groups which profit from property sales also raced to Capitol Hill,  

So now reform co-sponsor Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.) is pushing to delay the reforms until 2018.  Of course, in 2018 no one will be more willing to pay higher premiums, and undoubtedly will again lobby for further relief from Congress.

Explained Waters:  “Never in our wildest dreams did we think the premium increases would be what they appear to be today.”  Her new legislation, backed by a mix of Republicans and Democrats, would bar increases in premiums and reductions in subsidies for some properties, restore earlier subsidies for others, and mandate an “affordability study.”

Said Waters:  “neither Democrats nor Republican envisioned it would reap the kind of harm and heartache that may result from this law.”  She was echoed by Nicholas Pinter, a professor at Southern Illinois University, who advocated reforms but also “compassion for Americans living on flood-prone lands.” 

As I point out in my new article on Forbes online: 

Actually, those people need to be held responsible for their actions.  Compassion should be accorded taxpayers, who have suffered for decades.  Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney said the NFIP should not make up its shortfall from homeowners who “simply followed the rules.”  But if not them, who?  After all, they received the benefits of the subsidized insurance.

At the end of January, the Senate voted to effectively kill the 2012 reform.  That would “return the program to a state of insolvency,” Shai Akabas of the Bipartisan Policy Center told the New York Times. 

The Republican House leadership has approved a vote on a companion measure.  Even the White House criticized Congress’ potential U-turn.

In fact, the 2012 measure didn’t go far enough.  Congress should eliminate federally-subsidized flood insurance—entirely.  There is no justification for turning Uncle Sam into a back-stop for wealthy vacationers and other privileged recipients of federal largesse.

Like Uncle Sam, NFIP is broke.  It should be killed, not reformed.  Legislators should start exhibiting compassion for American taxpayers.