TALLAHASSEE – Analysts at the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank, today said Gov. Charlie Crist’s veto of SB 2044 will add a big burden to the state’s taxpayers and consumers.
“Consistency has never been one of Governor Crist’s strengths, except when it comes to consistently putting politics over the best interests of the state. The much-needed property insurance reform package he vetoed today would have helped stabilize the state’s shaky property insurance market and was a compromise that received wide support from both parties. It was even backed by his own Office of Insurance Regulation,” said Christian R. Cámara, the director of Heartland’s Florida Insurance Project.
“This veto illustrates Crist’s desperate personal conflict between what’s right and wrong for the state versus what’s good and bad for him politically, and it clearly shows that his priorities lie with the latter,” Cámara said.
Eli Lehrer, national director of Heartland’s Center on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate, said Crist’s veto shows the Florida governor was looking for headlines instead of policy solutions. “The bill that Crist vetoed was an exceedingly modest, incremental effort at reform that would have helped prevent insurance companies from going insolvent and leaving it to the state’s taxpayers to rescue their customers. The governor is vetoing it only as a way of getting his name in the paper,” said Lehrer. “The people of Florida will suffer as a result of his actions.”
Cámara can be reached at (305) 608-4300 or [email protected].
Lehrer can be reached at (202) 615-0586 or [email protected].
