Congress has the opportunity to finally change one of the greatestweaknesses afflicting the National Flood Insurance Program(NFIP). Designed to reduce the cost of major disasters byallowing workers to insure their property against floods, NFIP hasbeen saddled with having to repeatedly pay for rebuilding the samestructures. To make matters worse, most of these structurespay subsidized premiums that come nowhere close to covering thecosts they impose on the program.
President Bill Clinton has proposed that the federal governmentreceive unprecedented power to invest more than $650 billion in the stock market over the next 15 years.
America's workers deserve a more informative debate on SocialSecurity reform than they're getting. Personal retirement accountscan address the impending insolvency of the system and improveretirement incomes to help close the gap between the paymentspromised by the system and the amounts that it is able to pay.
There is no reason why Members of Congress cannot raise theirperformance measures on key domestic policy issues, many of whichhave already made some progress through the legislative process.Over the past few weeks, Members have shown exceptional resolve ona number of controversial issues. If they maintain this pace, theycould easily complete the needed work.