How Harvey Squeezes Congress on Flood Insurance

It took a cataclysmic storm and many, many billions of dollars’ worth of water damage for people to notice that the National Flood Insurance Program is running a deficit of more than $25 billion. The U.S. government is generally on the hook for the bulk of flood-insurance claims; Hurricane Harvey’s costs are expected to mount to tens of billions of dollars in Texas. The insurance program has become a political hot potato.

The NFIP is about to expire on Sept. 30. That means weeks after Congress comes back from its August recess, lawmakers will have to decide the program’s fate. President Donald Trump’s America First budget had called for funding cuts for the NFIP to “ensure that the cost of government services is not subsidized by taxpayers who do not directly benefit” from the effort. Chris Christie, the Republican New Jersey governor and Trump supporter whose state was battered by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, has said in a local television interview that slashing the budget could be a bad idea, though much of the costs could be shifted to the private sector.