Pulling the Bill

Statement

This week in Washington, the Democrat Majority ran scared of their own big-government spending bill. On Thursday, I stood on the House floor and exposed a government wind insurance program that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars and threaten over 40,000 jobs by crowding out the private sector industry.

The bill, H.R. 1264, would expand the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to include wind-storm insurance coverage, creating a massive new program of government-provided coverage backed by taxpayer dollars. Labeled "high risk" by the Government Accountability Office, the NFIP already owes the U.S. Treasury over $18 Billion. H.R. 1264 would expand taxpayers' exposure to loss by adding wind insurance, which is currently available in private sector insurance markets.

With over $13 Trillion in debt, the federal government has no business adding another program to compete with the private sector. Even the White House opposed this unnecessary government program -- further exposing the current House of Representatives as a birthplace of bad ideas.

Wildly unpopular with the American people, the Majority's big government, job-killing policies are now making Democrats unpopular with themselves. Unable to round up frightened Members, Speaker Pelosi was forced to hastily pull the bill from the floor for lack of votes.

Speaker Pelosi knows that continuing to threaten the private sector with "Anything you can do, I can do better" will only lead to more unemployment and deeper deficits. The American people need jobs. It's past time for Congress to end irresponsible legislative games on the House floor and get serious about empowering the free enterprise system for real job creation.

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