Posted on 09/21/2007 5:48:13 AM PDT by Brilliant
Florida Governor Charlie Crist didn't appreciate our coverage of his plan to socialize his state's disaster insurance market and put taxpayers on the hook for billions. Now his populist lunge has won him a more formidable foe in the Sunshine State: his predecessor as Governor, Jeb Bush.
The highly popular Mr. Bush doesn't make a habit of violating Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment ("Thou Shalt Not Criticize Fellow Republicans"), but he's making an exception here. BestWeek, a trade publication of insurance rating firm A.M. Best, quotes Mr. Bush criticizing states that are crafting disaster insurance plans "that are as bad as the natural disasters themselves." Which states? "My beloved state of Florida has taken steps along that path." Ouch.
In January, Mr. Crist enthusiastically signed into law a measure to reduce the cost of hurricane insurance by largely abandoning the insurance market in favor of a guarantee that, whatever happens, Florida taxpayers will cover the tab. And what a tab it will be. Citizens Property and Casualty Insurance Corporation, a state-owned insurance company, has more than $434 billion of exposure and only $2 billion of reserves to pay claims, according to state Representative Dennis Ross, one of the cooler heads who didn't prevail in the legislative debate.
Mr. Ross outlines the financial downside in the Journal of the James Madison Institute. "As a result of the 2004-2005 storm seasons, private insurance companies paid out $39 billion to rebuild Florida. Now, if we encounter another storm cycle reminiscent of 2004 and 2005, it is our consumers and taxpayers who are left to pay these claims," writes Mr. Ross. "The total debt of the State is $22 billion. This debt accumulated during the course of Florida's more than 100-year history as a state and could, literally, double overnight with one storm."...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
When Crist was fawning over Schwarzenegger and Baby Kennedy about global warming, I knew we were toast. Before then, I only had strong suspicions.
ping...
Even people here on FR.
He was a very, very good governor.
Yah, Jeb was the best of the bunch. Should have been Jeb and not George as President. We’d be in much better shape.
Did not and would not vote for Crist. Saw a lot of this stuff comming.
After almost 30 years in Fl. my family and I now live in S.C.
I did not leave Fl., Fl left me.
JC
I would be perfectly happy to recruit and vote for Jeb as FL Governor in 2010.
I like him, but too bad Jeb doesn’t want oil drilling off the Florida coast.
You must not pay property taxes and windstorm insurance.
Jeb is smarter, tougher and more intelligently stubborn - but make no mistake, he is a Bush, he is a globalist and he has very deep ties to the Mexican royal families. Watch a Zorro movie, look at the Dons, and you have Jeb.
I didn’t vote for Crist either. I’d almost say I’d envy your move, but you’ve got that backstabbing Lindsey Graham to deal with now. Jim DeMint is a great senator though. (Not that the Florida senators are any good.)
That is the entire problem in a nutshell. Jeb was a great governor. But he is still a globalist. There is no way I could vote for him for president because that would just give us a smarter more intelligently stubborn open borders, amnesty advocate.
Jeb was a good governor.
I miss Jeb as a governor. He was a blessing to this state!
he’s a coward. he feigned interest in seniors and disabled people. can’t have a leader who won’t protect the people.
Did you see that Crist put a football player in charge of the regional transit authority? Apparently, that’s better than putting an actual person with knowledge of the interstate highway system other than which limo to get into.
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