BY W. ANDERSON BAKER III
Congress will apparently not add catastrophic wind coverage to the National Flood Insurance Program. I’m sure that makes sense. It was obvious no one was going to accept the premise that the pricing would have been actuarially sound, which set up the argument that one group of people would be subsidizing the lifestyle of others, and even though our entire tax system is based on this premise, that’s an argument for another day.
However, accepting the premise that people on the coast would have had their rates subsidized, I would ask: Who gets to live in New Orleans?
Leaving aside second homes, mansions on the beach, and hotels with 20-story ocean views, let’s talk about the more practical matter of who gets to live in New Orleans.
Just the stevedores? Perhaps the tugboat captains? Of course, the deckhands on the tugs will be needed. After the tugboats push the barge alongside the dock, and the stevedores unload the barges, the cargo needs to be transported by truck to a rail yard. We’ll probably need truck drivers.
The trucks will likely need maintenance, so mechanics will be necessary.
Someone needs to feed all these people, or at least sell them food.
If one of the butchers cuts his hand, he’ll need a doctor and a nurse. When he gets to the emergency room, someone will have to take his medical information to get the claim processed. If the accident was serious, he may need to be transported in an ambulance with a driver and staffed by a paramedic.
This extrapolation could go on and on until you have a million people serving one of the nation’s largest ports.
Who depends on that port?
New Orleans
is the nation’s largest port for steel imports used in all areas of the nation’s manufacturing economy. If the stevedores can’t move it in New Orleans, the price of steel goes up (steel doesn’t come through New Orleans because the ship captain likes the music here), increasing the costs to our marginally competitive manufacturers.
We can play the same game all over again with the farmers in the Midwest who export grain all over the world.
What would happen to the inland manufacturing economies and the nation’s economy if the port of New Orleans was no longer open for business because risk-based insurance pricing had closed it? Would the farm equipment dealers sell fewer tractors? Would the equipment manufacturers then have to lay off workers?