Good news, I think...

The Federal relief legislation has passed in principle... which is really good news. Below are a few excerpts from the SunHerald article.

Senate and House negotiators officially signed off on $29 billion in spending for hurricane relief, including a bailout of uninsured South Mississippi flood victims...

...Pending its expected passage into law, Cochran's plan includes $11.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants to Mississippi and Louisiana, which the state has flexibility in spending. Mississippi plans to use the bulk of its share - expected to be about $5 billion - on grants to 35,000 devastated homeowners who didn't have flood insurance because federal guidelines said they didn't need it.

"The most likely scenario is grants of a maximum $150,000 each, with, of course, eligibility requirements," said Buddy Bynum, spokesman for Gov. Haley Barbour. "This would be for owner-occupied dwellings, not apartments or hotels. Subtracted from the amount would be any FEMA or insurance payments the homeowners had received."

Now, being a guy who has a pretty low opinion of government, especially at the Federal level and who loves Mississippi but often marvels at the decisions my state government makes, I am still slightly skeptical of how much this will end up helping people like us. I guess you could say I'm cautiously optimistic.

My concern stems from:

1. At the Federal level, the legislation hasn't yet passed and is attached to the defense budget which has some very partisan amendments included in it (ANWR drilling for example). Our Senators/Representatives expect to see it passed into law soon... it'll probably pass, but I'm not counting those chickens yet.
   
   
2. At the State level, I'm waiting to see what the 'elegibility requirements' are. I'm sure these are as outlined in the article as "owner-occupied dwellings, not apartments or hotels" and my skepticism is for nought, but given the propensity of the government thus far to almost exclusively aid those who are unemployed or who had no insurance at all, I am again cautiously optimistic.
   

On top of all that, my preference is that the insurance companies would just pay their claims. I'm in the "less is more" camp when it comes to government and am bothered by the likelihood that Holly and I will be on the dole. On the other hand, it will be nice to get a lot of my tax dollars back and frankly, I think we'll need the money.

Additional good news is that I think this is likely what our insurer has been waiting on to give us their decision. My guess is that they'll come back with a settlement offer soon that is pretty near our policy amount minus the 150,000 grant from the State. When you combine the two, that would be very good and put us in a much better financial position.

Please please continue to pray that the insurance company would pay their obligations, pray that I would live out Peter's admonition to the church to submit to the government:

1 Peter 2: 13-17- ¹³Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, ¹⁴or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. ¹⁵For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. ¹⁶Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. ¹⁷Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.

and please pray that the government would be wise in its administration in general and especially in this Katrina relief.

Thanks,

Batch