In the February 1, 2010 edition of StateNet Capitol Journal, Lou Cannon notes that “only 12% of Californians with homeowners insurance also have quake insurance” as offered by the California Earthquake Authority. Cannon cites premiums costing “several hundred dollars a year and the deductible is 15 percent of the home’s insured value” as the reason that 88% of Californians don’t buy quake insurance. To protect California’s already bankrupt budget, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced legislation that would provide a federal …
In a recent press release touting a federal fire grant, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) noted that because “firefighters put their lives on the line every day,” we face a “moral issue” that required us to use federal funds to buy the Somerville Fire Department equipment. The reality is that despite billions in grants across the United States, the Fire Act program has not reduced the number of firefighter deaths or fires. As David Muhlhausen pointed out in his seminal data analysis paper on the Fire Act program, “fire grants, including …
As if the Obama Administration and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano didn’t have enough tough issues to handle with the total failure of the post-9/11 system to keep a terrorist with a bomb off our airplanes, the LA Times reports that the Obama Administration is more committed than ever to push for amnesty in 2010. That is madness. Let’s take a step back and consider where things stand. First, the economy remains on very fragile ground with millions of Americans out of work, the next pack of home foreclosures to hit, …
Despite one of the quietest hurricane seasons in years, the number of FEMA declarations this year is on pace to hit 139 declarations, which would be the fifth highest since 1953 and 9 declarations higher than the 8-year average of George W. Bush’s FEMA. The problem is that we have created a system that promotes the nationalization of natural disasters. His system stretches FEMA thin as it has to deal with a new declaration every 2.4 days and encourages states and localities to divert resources away from emergency management to …
The Obama Administration just cannot make the New York Times editorial board happy when it comes to immigration policy. First, the Obama Administration ends the practice of detention and removal of illegal immigrants caught during work site raids. Then, the Obama Administration decides not only shouldn’t they detain and remove illegal immigrant caught during work site raids, but they should give them temporary work permits so that those illegal immigrants will cooperate with prosecutors. Now, the Obama Administration merely lets the employer target know it is coming to do a …
“Show me the money!” is one of the most memorable lines from a movie—Jerry Maguire—in the last twenty years. Coincidentally, that movie came out in 1996, which was a reelection year for President Bill Clinton. Not coincidentally, President Clinton in fact showed them the money in 1996 when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued more disaster declarations—157—than any year before or after. In “States: Stop Subsidizing FEMA Waste and Manage Your Own Local Disasters,” we detail the tendency over the last sixteen years to define disaster down so that …
On this 8th Anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack, we are without question safer today than we were on that crisp, clear September morning in 2001. With each passing year, the challenge to remain vigilant grows harder as many Americans struggle to make ends meet after losing their jobs, large percentages of their retirement funds, and, in some cases, their homes. The cacophony of noise surrounding America’s debate on health care drowns out the unity of purpose we all felt as the sun set just eight years ago. After …
As widely noted, President Barack Obama has comprehensive immigration reform on his 2010 legislative agenda. Given the policy changes made during his first nine months, it is clear that President Obama sees reform through the prism of perceived Hispanic votes and union payback. First, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano changed the worksite raid policy of deporting illegal immigrants caught during raids to giving those illegals temporary work permits to cooperate with DHS. Beyond the legal weakness in buying cooperation, does anyone really believe that the illegals released with work permits will …
In remarks last week to the H1N1 Preparedness Summit, President Barack Obama made what might be his most accurate statement since becoming president. When talking about efforts to deal with a possible pandemic, President Obama said: “And we’ve looked at past cases of this being properly handled and situations like this being improperly handled, and one of the most important differences is where it’s well handled, state and local officials have complete ownership over this issue, they are providing good ideas to the federal government, they are critical links to …
It was bad enough that the federal government utterly failed to enforce our interior enforcement immigration laws during the Clinton years and during the first term of George W. Bush. It was only after Michael Chertoff arrived as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and started taking a tough stance on illegal immigration that Immigration and Customs Enforcement began enforcing the laws on the books. Part of this get-tough approach included ending the self-defeating policy called “catch and release” where illegal immigrants were caught, but then released …
