David Obey: “I personally would prefer that there would be no federally financed disaster programs. I have introduced legislation…”

“I personally would prefer that there would be no federally financed disaster programs. I have introduced legislation which would require every State in the Union to buy into a federally run insurance plan so that on an experience-rated basis States would, much as they do with Worker's Compensation, prepay for any expected disaster short of a gargantuan tragedy. We have not been able to get that considered by either party, so we are stuck with what is left. I am much more concerned with whether this estimate is real than whether it fits within the niceties of the budget resolution, to be frank about it. I do not think that God gives us 2 weeks' notice before we have a hurricane; so we do not have time to send down a proper budget amendment. So I think we do the best we can. I think the difference between the gentleman from Iowa and the gentleman from Florida is that the gentleman from Iowa is free to pull numbers out of the air on the Committee on the Budget and describe the world as he and as Committee on the Budget think it ought to exist. But then the Committee on Appropriations and other legislative committees in this place have to implement what happens, and I think it is a whole lot more difficult to implement than it is to pronounce. So all I would say is, given the limited nature of the recommendations here, I think this is reasonable.”