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Drawing Line Between Rights And Appetites

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By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 19, 2008

In the early stages of a presidential battle between opponents who are less dissimilar than either campaign would eagerly confess, one line of demarcation interesting to Floridians emerged recently: The opinion gap puts much of Florida's Republican-led Legislature and all of its Pasco delegation in the camp of - gulp - presumptive Democrat nominee Barack Obama.

Having identified only one government program, existing or imagined, that he loves insufficiently to expand exponentially - our increasingly successful involvement in taming Iraq - Obama rapturously endorsed in early June a national catastrophe fund. This aligned him not only with assorted Gulf Coast/GOP governors, but also with Florida's immediate past governor, also known as President Bush's brother.

It also sank a wedge between himself and Sen. John McCain, who, in a rare alignment with traditional GOP thought, regards the idea as the worst sort of public canoodling in the private sector.

Granting 3 Wishes

As someone who adores Florida but who wouldn't live within 10 miles of the coast on a bet or even with a quadruple rollover Lotto jackpot divided among tax-free municipal bonds, I cede the better argument to the anti-nat-cat-fund folks. Big surprise there, huh?

This Space concedes that it's an old-fashioned notion, but government's essential function should be protecting the rights of those legally within its jurisdiction. We can argue 'til the snowbirds come back about what constitutes a right, but maintaining a dwelling on the beach or in a flood zone will never qualify. Not ever.

Still, a growing, party-neutral consensus among the elected class in the Southeast says national-cat-fund time has arrived. To spread the risk, lower premiums and make economic futures more predictable. It's not a national policy favoring the few.

Well, fine. This Space is looking at news video showing vast stretches of the Midwest under several feet of uncontained rivers. In Missouri plus assorted I-states, houses are submerged up to their fascia. Crops: history; businesses: wrecked; livestock: marooned; residents: displaced, with no idea when, or whether, they should return.

We'd say the damage is complete except that levees are under siege and may collapse at any moment.

High And Dry

Had a national catastrophe fund become law when the U.S. House of Representatives took it up last year, that new wellspring of dollars - tapping, among others, Florida contributors - soon would be flowing to folks ruined by living and working within the flood plains of the unruly Mississippi and Wabash rivers.

Maybe nat-cat-fund proponents among us would be sanguine regarding such a turn of events, dismissing the first big payout going somewhere other than to hurricane relief as a simple case of timing. Would they get worked up about bailing out some of the same folks flooded out 15 years ago - in other words, twice since Andrew socked South Florida?

Anyone who says yes understands the reluctance of Mountain Time Zone residents (not to mention folks on the high and dry central Florida Ridge) to subsidize anyone's laid-back coastal lifestyle, which is only an appetite, not an entitlement.

Columnist Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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