Government policies encourage Americans to live in risky places on seacoasts and along flood-prone rivers.

Despite rising federal deficits, Congress is set to pass another budget-busting spending bill. This time it is a $19 billion package of disaster-related subsidies.

As Hurricane Florence spins toward the Carolina coast, the nation’s attention will be on the disaster readiness and response of governments and the affected communities.

Congress is set to approve a multi-billion dollar aid package for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

During the Hurricane Harvey disaster, many reporters and commentators seemed to assume that federal agencies had to take the lead in rescuing the city

The federal-government-managed National Flood Insurance Program is $25 billion in debt, stokes moral hazard, and entails a regressive wealth transfer that favors coastal areas.

I am writing a study on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and looking at the issue of presidential disaster declarations. Under the 1988 Stafford Act, a state governor may request that the president declare a “major disaster” in the state if “the disaster is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and the affected local governments.”

Is nothing sacred? In Washington the answer is no. As the last Congress sought to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and raced toward adjournment, the House refused to vote on a pork-ridden bill sold as aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. That triggered a splenetic outburst from Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who complained that the GOP stuck a “knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyites.”

The wind and rain from Hurricane Sandy hadn't even stopped before some people argued that the storm made the case against reducing the size of the federal government or giving states more say in their affairs. The federal response to a crisis became the proxy for big government in all its bureaucratic glory. Cutting government, we were meant to understand, means letting Sandy's victims fend for themselves.

Proponents of an activist federal government are citing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy as evidence of the need for big government to manage and finance disaster relief. Of particular worry are possible cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's budget and devolution of responsibility to the states.