In the midst of hurricane season, with storms pounding the coastline from Louisiana up through New England, it not nice to say we stop helping people whose property has been damaged. They need our sympathy.

Yet the government program that provides low-cost flood insurance for property along the coast and in inland flood zones is deeply flawed, both in concept and execution.

The National Flood Insurance Program offers insurance at below-market prices to property owners in communities that have agreed to incorporate minimal zoning and building requirements in flood zones.

The zoning and building requirements were designed to discourage development in those zones, but construction has largely continued unabated since the program began, in part because the federal insurance for those areas is so cheap and the rules so flexible.

You have only to look at the rampant development along the shifting barrier beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks to understand that the program has failed to significantly slow the colonization and re-colonization of sites that are marginally safe, at best, for construction. The same holds for the redevelopment along the wrecked Mississippi and Louisiana coastlines post-Katrina and the rebuilding of homes and businesses along the ravaged Florida Panhandle post-Hurricane Ivan.

It's called the damage-repair-damage cycle, and it's the operant definition of dumb behavior paid for by the efforts of politicians eager to make constituents happy.

And because the program offers insurance at artificially low, subsidized prices, it doesn't pay for itself. Which means that you, the taxpayer, end up footing the bill when the program has to cover losses. Right now, the National Flood Insurance Program is $18 billion in debt.

The flood insurance program is due to expire at the end of September. A pitched battle is playing out in Congress, where many lawmakers from coastal states have not only insisted on continuing the program, but expanding it to cover damage from wind as well as flooding.

According to Americans for Smart Natural Catastrophe Policy, an unusual coalition of conservative, environmental, state government and consumer groups, covering wind damage would increase the cost of the program to as much as $161 billion in 2009 -- without adequate revenue to cover those payouts.

"Allowing the federal government to expand its involvement in a program already deep in debt would not only cost Americans tens of billions of dollars, but would do little to protect their safety or that of our precious environment," writes Eli Lehrer of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a coalition member.

Instead of expanding a program that can't pay for itself, that encourages building in unsafe and often environmentally sensitive zones and that forces taxpayers to subsidize reckless development, the coalition proposes that the federal and state governments require property owners in marginal areas to shore up already existing buildings.

A Wharton School study recently concluded that damage claims are reduced by 60 percent for structures built to wind-resistant standards. In other words, it's more cost-effective to help owners stormproof their properties before the storm hits -- rather than having taxpayers shell out money to fix it afterward.

The coalition also proposes that the government provide low-interest loans for such mitigation projects as well as tax credits on properties where the work has been undertaken.

These proposals are fiscally sound and environmentally responsible ways to tame a program that has, under the guise of kindness and charity, ill-served the national interest as well as this country's taxpayers.

It's time to reform the National Flood Insurance Program.