Hicks column: South Carolina congressmen should just own their selfishness

When record rainfall flooded South Carolina two years ago this month, the feds bailed us out.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency put up $180 million to help people rebuild their homes, replace their belongings and get medical treatment. The agency approved a similar amount for the state to repair infrastructure damaged by the storm.

When Hurricane Matthew hit South Carolina last October, FEMA offered $79 million for individuals and nearly $300 million for damage to the state.

The jury’s still out on how much assistance South Carolina will get for Tropical Storm Irma. But don’t be surprised if it’s zilch.

Last week, three South Carolina congressmen — Mark Sanford, Jeff Duncan and Ralph Norman — joined 66 other Republicans in voting against disaster relief for Texas, Florida, California and Puerto Rico.

Which have been jack-hammered by three major hurricanes and a significant fire in recent months.

Of course, our representatives claim to support disaster relief for others. But they contend there were problems with the $36.5 billion aid package.

Oddly enough, the issues are completely different from the alleged problems that prompted them to vote against a similar aid package in September.

So don’t be surprised if next time we need help — and we’re on a three-year streak here — other parts of the country find a problem with our aid.

And you can thank Sanford, Duncan and Norman.

A pattern forms

Congressmen Sanford and Norman say the disaster relief bill simply included too much pork to support it.

Which is exactly what Republicans said when they voted against aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy four years ago.

Among that Sandy pork: money to reinforce damaged buildings so they can weather future storms, and beach renourishment in front of NASA’s Cape Canaveral launch pad.

Yeah, total pork.

This time, our guys groused that the aid package included a loan to Puerto Rico they fear will never be repaid. But they directed most of their ire at $16 billion for the National Flood Insurance Program.

Sanford called the bailout “unprecedented.”

You mean, like the unprecedented number of storms that have beat the hell out of the country in recent years? Could there be a correlation?

Claims on flood insurance have skyrocketed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which is unsurprising as the frequency and severity of storms has increased (Note: this has nothing to do with climate change; it’s totally a coincidence).

Yes, the flood insurance program is hemorrhaging money. Sure, it’s a bureaucracy and they all have problems. But one of the program’s greatest woes is that Congress orders it to subsidize individual flood insurance policies but conveniently neglects to provide the funding to do so. Premiums simply don’t cover all the costs.

Here’s a fun fact: The Congressional Budget Office says one reason the program faces mounting debt is that counties along the Southeast and Gulf coasts aren’t paying enough into it. Their flood insurance is too cheap.

More than a third of flood insurance claims cite storm surge as the cause of damage. Yet these counties keep building homes in dangerous places, as Mother Nature proves regularly.

So basically, Sanford is complaining about a failing program that his colleagues and his constituents messed up. Nothing could be richer than that irony. Except maybe this: On Friday, Sanford called for a national flood-ready infrastructure.

Which is exactly what the Sandy relief bill addressed, and several South Carolina congressmen at the time called pork.

Brazen hypocrisy

Congressman Duncan has offered no reason for his most recent vote against disaster relief.

In September, however, he said he voted against the first Harvey aid package because the nation couldn’t continue to spend the money.

In other words: Houston, you have a problem.

“The folks in South Carolina are concerned we’re not doing enough to address our deficit spending and our debt,” Duncan said.

Guess that means Duncan plans to vote against President Trump’s tax plan, which is estimated to increase the nation’s debt by $5 trillion (that’s trillion with a “t”).

It’s funny, none of these principled South Carolina conservatives sounded the warning on flood insurance or debt when FEMA was delivering all that cash, 1.5 million meals and 1.3 million liters of water to this state over the past couple of years.

Then it was great.

You know, some people might call that hypocrisy. But it plays well in some quarters, so they might as well drop the phony excuses and own it.

Let’s just hope South Carolina doesn’t have to pay for their brazen hypocrisy the next time we get flooded and beaten to a pulp by a Category 4 hurricane.

Otherwise we’ll be sitting around like Puerto Rico, trying to figure out how to fix our roads with thoughts and prayers.