Declarations

They Could Have Been Fixed

“The people could have fixed their homes if they had money. But they (state officials) are so scared that somebody’s going to get a dime they shouldn’t have gotten, nobody gets anything for three years.”

—Texas State Rep. Joe Deshotel, a Beaumont Democrat, says federal, state and local bureaucracy are responsible for the slow pace of distributing money to rebuild parts of Southeast Texas that sustained damage from Hurricane Rita in 2005. The Associated Press reported that so far the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has spent only 38.5 percent of a $428 million federal allotment that arrived in 2007. Deshotel said it has taken too much time to get the Rita housing money moving and that it would have been better to give homeowners or nonprofit organizations the government money, with accountability rules in place, and allow them to arrange repairs and rebuilding.

No Government Handouts

“Property/casualty insurers have not asked for government handouts, and our industry is stable and continuing to provide critical services to local economies and their communities.”

—J. Douglas Robinson, chairman and chief executive officer of Utica, N.Y.-based Utica National Insurance Group. Robinson, representing members of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), testified before the House Small Business Committee and urged lawmakers not to increase regulation on home, auto and business insurers. Robinson said these types of insurers are predominantly a Main Street industry that is already stable and competitive, and that new regulations would be costly to consumers. He said these insurers are in good financial shape and are already under “strong and effective solvency and consumer protection regulation” at the state level.

A Public Health Issue

“With teen drivers, you have to recognize that it’s a public health issue.”

—Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, a Phoenix pediatrician who co-wrote an American Academy of Pediatrics report on teen drivers that appears in the October issue of Pediatrics, comments on findings that teenagers with their own cars or have free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. More than 7,000 people nationwide were killed in crashes involving teen drivers in 2007, government data show. More than 3,000 of these deaths were teen drivers, and more than 250,000 teen drivers were injured. The findings are in two studies by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and funded by State Farm Insurance Co. The research is based on a nationally representative survey of more than 5,500 teens in grades nine through 11. Students at 68 high schools answered questionnaires in 2006. AP