Political Quotes

“I almost hesitate rising. I know the gentlewoman that has just spoken is a fine member of our committee and, of course, she does not want to burden the homeowners and all of these small business people and everything. When we really stand back and analyze the argument, the argument is, there is a free lunch. Now, we are talking about insurance. There is no free lunch here. Insurance companies do not create money or assets. They merely gather premiums, analyze what the proportionate risk will be, the premiums cover that risk, and then they put out the money. If we reduce the number of premium payers, we reduce the base and for the remaining payers we accelerate the rates. It is as simple as that. It is so simple that most States in this Union require terrorism insurance as part of the main policy. We are not putting an extra burden on people here. I will tell my colleagues what burden we are putting on: if we do not have this premium base that spreads across the country for terrorism insurance, we are going to have a 1,000 percent increase in insurance in New York City and Los Angeles, the symbols of the country where terrorism would attack.”