Give me a break (from insuring your beach house)

If you like John Stossel and his "Give Me a Break" pieces for 20/20, you will love his Reason article: Confessions of a Welfare Queen, that Michelle Malkin dug up. Subtitled How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars the March 2004 article exposes how FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program work to encourage risky behavior by subsidizing it. You don't need to be an actuary to understand it.

The Reason article is concerned with the fact that these government programs have been tailored to suit the needs of wealthy beach front home owners. When their mansions get washed away, tax money helps them rebuild. Think FEMA and the NFIP will build anything nice for the poor Katrina victims? Even if they spend all your tax money, I think not.

Michelle Malkin's post titled FEMA Follies, has links to further disaster fraud, waste and abuse stories. And some scary talk about how much tax money the Feds are already planning to spend on this disaster.

Update: More unpleasant flood control fraud waste and abuse stories at Wizbang - Louisiana Wasted Flood Control Money on Pork . I figure there will be plenty of this unpleasantness to go around as more of these old tax scams float to the surface.