WASHINGTON – Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) joined The Attorney Patrick Smith Show on AM860 The Answer–Tampa to discuss Chuck Schumer's government shutdown, and his bill H.R. 4494 – "The Flood Insurance Relief Act."
"The truth is, they want to demonstrate that they can fight Donald Trump. That's what this shutdown really is all about":
"I think this will probably end maybe another 10 days or so. And the reason why is because paychecks for the 30th are now going to be going out or have to go out for a lot of personnel in the federal government. And I think that at that point, there's not going to be an ability or maybe there's an ability for President Trump to do something else. But if the funds aren't running out, I think that's going to be the pressure point on the Senate Democrats to just see reality and, you know, reopen the government. That's just kind of where we are. And so, you know, the problem is what they're arguing for, what they say they're arguing for is not true. They're arguing for additional healthcare benefits for illegals. Then they want to argue for Obamacare subsidies. But the truth is, they want to demonstrate that they can fight Donald Trump. That's what this shutdown really is all about."
"We just wanted to provide a tax credit on flood insurance premiums and obviously it impacts Floridians directly. It also impacts a lot of Americans":
"Well, the motivation behind it is that flood isurance premiums continue to rise across the country. Really the national flood insurance program itself there needs to be some serious modernization in flood insurance at large but as a step towards that, the bigger thing is you have to give people or help people find relief. So we just wanted to provide a tax credit on flood insurance premiums and obviously it impacts Floridians directly. It also impacts a lot of Americans. Flood insurance is sold all over the United States. So, if there's some, some a modicum of a way to help people bascially be able to make ends meet, we want to be able to do that. I think if you're talking flood insurance overall, what's happened with the national flood insurance program is that it's like almost anything if you have just a quasi government run system that operates mostly in a broader economy, then it tends to dominate that economy because the government has the ability to undercut private markets if it chooses to. And so what we don't have now is enough private capital in the flood insurance market. We're actually looking at legislation to help change some of the structure of the flood insurance market overall. But this piece that you're talking about, this one is specifically about just giving homeowners just some tax relief as an offset of their flood insurance policies."
