Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Bad Citizenship

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hurricane water damage“Citizens Insurance, or Citizens, is the popular name for government established, not-for-profit insurers in Florida and Louisiana,” Wikipedia explains. “[Here in] Florida, the insurer is Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. In Louisiana, the insurer is the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Both were established in their respective states as insurers of last resort…

“Neither of these is connected with for-profit insurers with similar names.”

Citizens is government-owned and, as other companies pull out of this market, not the insurer of last resort but the insurer of only resort for most of us.

JULY–After six years without a hurricane in Florida, Citizens had an cash surplus of about $6.1 billion. That’s about the same as the entire public debt of the nation of Honduras. As a matter of fact, it is more cash in hand than the national debt of several small African countries (Botswana, Gabon, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Nanibia, Uganda, or Zambia).

Citizens is trying everything it can think of to move its policies into Florida’s private insurance market while hanging on to our money. The other insurers discussed what to do in a back room meeting in July: They want to require Citizens to pay the private companies billions of dollars to take over the policies, and they will raise premiums.

AUGUST–With customers complaining about getting hit with higher premiums, Citizens announced they will revise their inspection program aimed at raising rates^H^H^H “helping prevent wind damage to homes.”

NOVEMBER–The state-backed insurance programs have angered hundreds of thousands of policyholders. The outcry from consumers followed a mind-boggling $137 million in premium increases. More than 175,000 property owners have already seen their premiums skyrocket by an average of $810 after an inspection. (My premiums here had already risen over $1,000 — about 48% — from 2006 through 2011, before my own inspection.)

I paid Citizens almost $3,300 last year. I paid the same amount this year because that’s the figure on their invoice. That was incorrect, but we’ll get back to that.

Citizens hires local inspectors rather than send their own employees out. I had put the inspection off all summer because I wasn’t here but I couldn’t do it forever because their default position is “no inspection no ‘discounts'” for our previously known hurricane protections, so my rates would get even worse.

The inspector, a nice fellow named Jose, took pictures of the roof straps and a piece of painter’s tape on a rafter on which he had marked nail locations, the window shutters, the door covers, and the roof.

Jose told me that, after Hurricane Wilma, he repaired his own loss by replacing (not just overhauling) his roof. He did the work himself so he never pulled a building permit. Citizens dropped him because they claimed he had not done anything on the roof since 1992. It took Jose six months and a lawyer to get covered again.

He strongly recommended that I get a copy of the inspection report from Citizens.

hurricane wind damageI did check to see that Citizens had properly credited my premium check to the account, only to find they have bumped my rates to over FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS per year. And put me on a “payment plan” in which my three grand check was merely the first installment. Good to have a government-run insurer helping us.

I talked with my agent. Looks like Citizens took away a $1,400 deduction for roof strapping and shutters. I expect to get that back. Sometime. See, they have to process the inspection which will take another 30-45 days. Then deny it. Then argue with my agent. Then argue with my lawyer.

That all means my policy will go up “only” $500 no matter what.

Most Florida homeowners pay Citizens far more for windstorm insurance alone than they pay in property taxes.

If you truly believe Obamacare will help you, understand that Citizens is the face of government-run insurance.

ID Required

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We made the long drive from North Puffin to South Puffin last week. The consensus was to “avoid New Jersey” which we did, but I still saw the results of Shredder Sandy in the firewood on lawns and highway shoulders across Pennsylvania and parts of Maryland. We had to detour around the Delaware Water Gap on some lovely, twisty windy roads that got my rally juices flowing. Those roads didn’t appear on my map, so I’m not sure I could find them again.

A very nice lady at the Florida border handed us a waxed-paper cup of freshly squeezed orange juice; Anne had seconds, then we put the top down and continued along.

 

I voted in person on Tuesday. Despite the news reports about the horrors of voting in Florida, all true by the way, the hopelessly long line leading to the South Puffin voting booths had (wait for it) three people waiting. It really did take longer to read the 8-page ballot than it did to get to the booth and that despite studying up on it ahead of time.

I had to show my photo identification (my driver license) to get in the door so I wondered, aloud, why Florida had given me a voter ID card. No one at the polls knew because they weren’t accepting that card.

Now I know.

 

eye exam formRegular readers may recall that I had cataracts sucked out of my eyes a couple of months ago. The end result is that I have a really neat form from my ophthalmologist certifying me. OK, certifying that my vision is adequate to UNcheck the CORRECTIVE LENSES REQUIRED box on my Florida driver license.

We all know that just having the eye doc fill out a form is far too simple for a state that employs more bureaucrats than the entire population of Vermont. State government employee numbers had grown to 184,237 by 2011. County and local government employees increased to 703,922. That’s more than the population of South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, or Wyoming. Heck Florida government employs more people than the population of Vermont plus the population of the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands twice. Combined. (Worth noting: in the 50 years from 1957 to 2006, Florida’s population increased 302%, but the number of state and local government employees increased 583%. Corporate layoffs have been in the news as companies fight costs, but that’s another story.)

None of the 184,237 people ever answered the phone at Florida DMV when I called, so I eventually tried the county driver license office to find out what I need to bring to my get my license changed. I need to bring a lot.

The state website shows that Florida law requires one to bring “identification and proof of residense (sic) documents” for a new license but doesn’t make clear if that applies to changing the vision requirements as I need. A very nice lady in the Marathon office told me that, yes, I need a:

1. Valid United States Passport
2. Social Security Card or any 1099
3. TWO Proofs of Residential Address, such as

  • Utility bills, not more than two months old
  • Current homeowner’s insurance policy or bill
  • Florida Voter Registration Card

The voter registration card is your ticket to a driver license, the document you need to … vote. Plus your existing driver license that they collected all this stuff for in the first place.

Of course, if I simply renew my driver license online, the state doesn’t require any ID.

Tuesday Tolerance: Why I’m a Liberal (And You’re Not)

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I may be the last real liberal.

Nancy Giles, courtesy Oberlin College Alumni Assoc CBS Sunday Morning looked at the line in the sand between liberals and conservatives by asking Nancy Giles and Ben Stein to do essays on why they come down on one side or the other.

Ms. Giles quoted what she called the Oxford English Dictionary definition:

liberal adj. Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own.

“I’m a liberal,” she said. “I love the mix of voices and the larger perspective.”
I’m down with that.

In fact, I couldn’t agree more that we need a mix of voices. Mine is right, of course, but others do add color and flavor and nuance and, yes, more data to what I say.

Hey! I must be a liberal.

The bad news is two-fold. One is the simple fact that none of the other liberals I know are actually willing to listen to other voices or see the larger perspective. The most recent example is that of picketers trying to shut down the voice of Lenore Broughton the driving force behind the Vermonters First super PAC.

Oh. I must be the only liberal.

And then there is the case of Islam. Many believe Islam is a religion of terror and war and destruction of women but, according to American liberals, there are only a “few warlike Muslims so we can’t damn the whole religion.” And yet. And yet, my liberal friends damn everyone to the Right of them for a few right wing nutcases at abortion clinics.

“I could only listen until that woman read that definition of Liberal and claimed that was what she was,” Rufus said. “Libruls are the least liberal people I know.”

Rufus leads us to the second bit of bad news. See, I own an O.E.D. “Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own” ain’t in it. On the other hand, Merriam-Webster does call liberal, “not literal or strict : loose <as in a liberal translation>.”

Looks like I am indeed a liberal in the first sense but Ms. Giles and the other self-proclaimed “liberals” I know hew to the second. They are as incorrect or inaccurate with the facts as possible. Or perhaps it was just an inexact translation.

Let’s go back to Ms. Giles’ dictionary.

liberal adj. Of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.

That’s interesting but it’s not in my printed copy of the O.E.D. Here’s her next definition.

liberal adj. believing the government should be active in supporting social and political change.

Oh, boy. That’s out of Wikipedia or the Socialist’s Bible but it has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with the dictionary.

liberal adj. Tending to give freely; generous.

Ooo. I’m down with that, too. Of course most people know that the leader of the American liberal party, Barack Obama, grudgingly started giving more than a pittance to charity about the day after he decided to run for president. In other words, once people would actually notice. The leader of the other guys (that would be Mitt Romney) has given away a big percentage of his, quietly, every year he’s had income. On a more personal level, all the liberals I know want to control my income while my efforts go into an arts council and Anne’s into the Special Olympics. Our choice.

Money and politics. Ms. Giles wants control of both and that’s not very liberal.

OEDIn fact, my actual O.E.D. includes definition #5 as

liberal adj. Favourable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms; spec (in politics) favouring free trade and gradual political and social reform that tends towards individual freedom or democracy.

I may not respect but I do accept your incredible naivete, behavior, and opinions that differ from mine. I give of myself without asking you to do the same. I believe in local control, free trade and social reform that moves us toward individual freedoms and democracy.

Yup. I’m a liberal. And you’re not.

Trash to Riches

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My garbage man has to buy a new truck.

Vermont has very little municipal trash collection, even in our small municipalities. Many Vermonters contract private haulers to collect and dump our trash; others, like my daughter, load up their dogs and plastic bags for the Saturday morning outing to the transfer station.

Freelance Editorial Art by Roy Doty: http://www.roydoty.com/posters-editorial/garbage-truck.htm Tom Ripley owns my garbage route. I like Tom. He’s friendly, always on time, and comes right up on the porch to pick up the trash cans. He even (usually) latches the storm door when he puts the cans back. He owns a couple of used garbage trucks that he bought at the state auction and usually has a couple-three pickups that he runs around his route every Sunday before church. Sadly, he’s leaving the business because Vermont says he has to buy a new truck.

Gov. Peter Shumlin (D-VT) moved us “towards universal recycling [to] advance Vermont into the next generation of solid waste management and keep more waste out of our landfills” with a new law he signed this year.

The mandate requires waste haulers to collect everything from yard waste to commercial food waste, and prohibits dumping any recyclable or compostable materials in landfills.

Did you know there is a U.S. Composting Council? Its executive director says that “Enacting the law over time will ensure its success on a number of levels.”

The timeline begins in 2014 when all mandated recyclables must be removed from the solid waste stream. In 2015 yard waste goes. Two years after that, in 2017 food waste must be gone.

The prohibition mandates that every hauler have compartmented trucks. And everyone is soooooo very pleased about how the law will be phased in to give haulers enough time to build the infrastructure.

Tom has to buy a new truck.

Of course by law, Tom won’t be allowed to charge extra for handling the recycled materials.

But wait! There’s more!

“If a facility collects mandated recyclables from a commercial hauler, the facility may charge a fee for the collection of those mandated recyclables.” — Act 148

Tom has to buy a new truck.

But wait! There’s more!

Food residuals can’t go in the waste stream any more. In fact, “uncontaminated material that is derived from processing or discarding of food and that is recyclable, in a manner consistent with section 6605k of this title” (i.e. preconsumer and postconsumer food scraps) must be source separated. — Act 148

I have to pick out the wilted lettuce. Tom has to buy a new truck.

“Mr. Ripley could use his old truck and just drive the route twice,” one regulator told me. Or four times if our regulatory friend could count.

That makes perfect Green sense.

It used to be that when government usurped private property by annexing your land or legislated you out of business, it was called a taking. Times change. I guess the Far Green figures that a mandated purchase like Tom’s new truck is just another tax.

Follow the money. Somebody’s getting rich on this but it sure ain’t Tom Ripley.

For the record, Act 148 does allow new “taxes on all nonrecyclable, nonbiodegradable products or packaging.”