Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for at-risk homes that are repeatedly flooded, because "at some point, God is telling you to move," Rep. Jeb Hensarling bluntly declared Thursday.
In remarks to CNBC's "Squawk Box," the Texas Republican, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, decried "these repetitive loss properties."
"So for example, we have one property outside of Baton Rouge [Louisiana] that has a modest home worth about $60,000 that's flooded over 40 times," he told the outlet. "The taxpayers have paid almost half a million dollars for it."
"At some point, God is telling you to move," he added.
"If all we do is force federal taxpayers to build the same home in the same fashion in the same location and expect a different result, we all know that is the classic definition of insanity."
Hensarling also pointed out some "fairness issues" as to whether a "factory worker in Kansas ought to be subsidizing a millionaire's beach condo in Florida."
"If we had a robust competitive market that would help educate people about the risk of flood and a lot of that would get rolled into the homeowner's policy," he said.
President Donald Trump has signed a bill providing $15 billion for Hurricane Harvey disaster relief, which incorporated an extension of the federal flood insurance program.
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