This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, September 21st, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

In the face of a natural disaster, governors beg the feds to open up the spigot for taxpayer-funded

relief.

But how does that change the way states prepare for disasters?

It is Chris Edwards says the incentives are mostly bad.

We spoke today.

How do we evaluate the differences and the effectiveness of disaster relief

between the private sector and the public sector?

Well, since the beginning of the republic, the private sector in the United States,

meaning individuals and businesses have brilliantly responded to natural disasters.

So if you go back a century, for example, to the

1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which many of our listeners may have heard about.

It destroyed 80% of San Francisco.

It was a huge disaster.

So this was the era before big government.

So what happened?

Well, what happened was that private individuals, wealthy individuals,

donated huge amounts to the relief effort, private companies like railroad companies, health care

companies, poured in supplies for free to help people.

It was a really brilliant response by the private sector.

What has happened in recent decades is that the federal government keeps expanding its response

...