Ron Paul Encourages Private Donations Instead of Federal Aid for Disasters


Ron Paul, whose own house was damaged by Hurricane Harvey, says that federal disaster aid makes problems worse because of centralized control and bureaucratic inefficiency. The Flood Insurance Program was created to provide government-backed insurance for properties that cannot obtain private insurance. By overruling the market’s verdict that these properties should not be insured, federal flood insurance encourages construction in flood-prone areas, thus increasing the extent of damage caused by flooding. Paul says he expects the Federal Reserve simply will crank up the printing press to create new money to pay the claims. This, of course, will turn the flood of water into a flood of money, which is a hidden tax called inflation. –GEG

Texans affected by Hurricane Harvey, including my family and me, appreciate the outpouring of support from across the country. President Donald Trump has even pledged to donate one million dollars to relief efforts. These private donations will be much more valuable than the as much as 100 billion dollars the federal government is expected to spend on relief and recovery. Federal disaster assistance hinders effective recovery efforts, while federal insurance subsidies increase the damage caused by natural disasters.

Federal disaster aid has existed since the early years of the republic. In fact, it was a payment to disaster victims that inspired Davy Crockett’s “Not Yours to Give” speech. However, the early federal role was largely limited to sending checks. The federal government did not become involved in managing disaster relief and recovery until the 20th century. America did not even have a federal agency dedicated solely to disaster relief until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by executive order. Yet, Americans somehow managed to rebuild after natural disasters before 1979. For example, the people of Galveston, Texas successfully rebuilt the city following a major hurricane that destroyed the city in 1900.

FEMA’s well-documented inefficiencies are the inevitable result of centralizing control over something as complex as disaster recovery in a federal bureaucracy. When I served in Congress, I regularly voted against federal disaster aid for my district. After the votes, I would hear from angry constituents, many of whom would later tell me that after dealing with FEMA they agreed that Texas would be better off without federal “help.”

Following natural disasters, individuals who attempt to return to their own property — much less try to repair the damage — without government permission can be arrested and thrown in jail. Federal, state, and local officials often hinder or even stop voluntary rescue and relief efforts.

FEMA is not the only counterproductive disaster assistance program. The National Flood Insurance Program was created to provide government-backed insurance for properties that could not obtain private insurance on their own. By overruling the market’s verdict that these properties should not be insured, federal flood insurance encourages construction in flood-prone areas, thus increasing the damage caused by flooding.

Just as payroll taxes are unable to fully fund Social Security and Medicare, flood insurance premiums are unable to fund the costs of flood insurance. Federal flood insurance was almost $25 billion in the red before Hurricane Harvey. Congress will no doubt appropriate funding to pay all flood insurance claims, thus increasing the national debt. This in turn will cause the Federal Reserve to print more money to monetize that debt, thus hastening the arrival of the fiscal hurricane that will devastate the US economy. Yet, there is little talk of offsetting any of the costs of hurricane relief with spending cuts!

Congress should start phasing out the federal flood insurance program by forbidding the issuance of new flood insurance policies. It should also begin reducing federal spending on disaster assistance. Instead, costs associated with disaster recovery should be made 100-percent tax-deductible. Those who suffered the worst should be completely exempted from all federal tax liability for at least two years. Tax-free savings accounts could also help individuals save money to help them bear the costs of a natural disaster.

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National Flood Insurance Program Is Broke – Even Before Claims from Hurricane Harvey


The National Flood Insurance Program offered through FEMA is insolvent and on track for bankruptcy at $24.6 billion in debt. It has a borrowing cap of $30 billion, and Hurricane Harvey claims have not even started to come in. The Program has been kept afloat from ‘loans’ from the Treasury, which means it will never be paid back except by citizens in the form of higher taxes and inflation.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is insolvent and on track for bankruptcy at $24.6 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury, The Advocate reports.

Insurance claims from the Category 4 hurricane that flooded the Gulf Coast of Texas last month haven’t even begun pouring in yet, according to Louisiana’s The Advocate.

The NFIP’s borrowing authority is capped at $30.4 billion, leaving a cushion of $5.8 billion before the program either shuts down or is restructured to cover its costs, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Friday.

Loans from the Treasury operating like government subsidies are the only way the NFIP has managed to stay afloat, Louisiana State University finance professor Jim Boyd told The Advocate.

“Somebody’s not running this so-called insurance program correctly,” Boyd said. “That’s maybe a government bail-out, not insurance.”

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Canada: Calgary Police Warn Parents Their Children May Belong to a Hate Group If They Act – Like Children

Police in Calgary released a pamphlet advising parents that if their children listen to “loud, heavy rock music with violent lyrics” they may be part of a hate group. Other danger signs included in the warning were lack of interest in school, staying out late, changing appearance, and other rather normal behavior patterns among teenagers.  The list of danger signs contained four that related to racism and two that related to immigrants and people who may be considered as non-Canadian. –GEG

Hate groups and organizations

The impact of hate and bias is far reaching and can cause severe stress for all members of the community. Hate groups are set of individuals who perpetuate this by targeting specific groups. Hate groups are sometimes responsible for hate crimes and incidents.

Hate groups often attempt to recruit young people of high school and college age. They use many forms of media in order to recruit others to their causes, including posting and distributing flyers at schools or on the street, and using the internet to provide access to their ideologies.

Hate groups are also increasingly using hate music bands to recruit. Some hate groups even try to appeal to younger children by including games and child friendly content on their websites.

Hate groups prey on lonely youth who are socially isolated by learning their weaknesses and drawing them into a group in which they feel accepted. Prime targets for recruitment are youth who are abused, angry, unemployed, dropouts or runaways. Groups befriend students and invite them to meetings, making them feel wanted and important, providing membership cards, titles and a sense of belonging. Through rituals and impressive ceremonies, individual youth can be easily impressed and recruited, often due to their lack of identifiable future.

Members of racist groups provide a false camaraderie and friendship that is motivated by reasons that the target is unaware of. They intimate that their hate group is simply a social club, or a legitimate nationalist political party or movement interested in preserving Canadian culture. They always lie to new members, never telling them of their true agenda of hatred and violence before it is too late.

Examples of hate group propaganda symbols include:

  • 88 – Represents the eighth letter ‘H’ hence HH – Heil Hitler.
  • 311 – Represents the 11th letter ‘K’ hence KKK – Ku Klux Klan.
  • 18 – Represents 1st and 8th letters ‘A’ ‘H’ – short for Adolf Hitler.

Signs of a child being part of a hate group

If your child is involved in a hate group, these early warning signs may be a clue:

  • Sudden lack of interest in school.
  • Adopting new groups of friends and staying out late without any explanation.
  • Violence or secretive behaviour.
  • Overt hostility to parents and family, disobedience, rudeness.
  • Racist graffiti, drawings and doodling.
  • Playing loud, heavy music with violent lyrics.
  • Stereotyping and scape-goating of certain groups; name calling, racial and religious slurs in conversation at all times.
  • Making racist or bigoted comments about minorities, immigrants or foreigners.
  • A marked repugnance to consider certain ethnic or religious groups as fully Canadian or even human.
  • Wearing or displaying Nazi propaganda and symbols such as swastikas or the Iron Cross and/or military clothing and paraphernalia.
  • Changing their appearance.

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VP of Libertarian Cato Institute Criticizes Ron Paul As A Conspiracy Theorist And Xenophobe

The Cato Institute is a Libertarian think tank, funded by the Koch brothers, that claims to be dedicated to individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Cato’s VP of Research, Brink Lindsey, recently sent multiple tweets calling Ron Paul a xenophobe and a conspiracy theorist. He described Paul’s philosophy as a “hideous corruption of libertarian ideas.” [We expect to see a loss of public support for Cato and The Koch Brothers if Lindsay is not jettisoned into deep space for these comments.] –GEG

Following his attack on Ron Paul, Lindsey also attacked libertarian theorist and luminary Murray Rothbard, whom Ron Paul had called “the founder of the modern libertarian movement.” In the tweet, Lindsey blamed Rothbard for the “ugly illiberal streak” within the libertarian movement:

This is not the first time that Lindsey attacked Ron Paul or the people surrounding him. In a 2007 article authored by Chris Hayes for The Nation, Lindsey described Ron Paul supporters as “a weird group of people,” consisting of libertarians, anti-war types, nationalists, and “xenophobes.”

Brink Lindsey has a long history of promoting views at odds with the grassroots libertarians, “xenophobes,” and “anti-war types” he derides. For example, in 2002 Lindsey expressed his support for the Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, war in North Korea, and other globalist interventions in Reason, stating that he “would support military action against Iraq even if 9/11 had never happened and there were no such thing as Al Qaeda.”

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