15 YEARS AGO March 2004.

• Position: FROM THE ARCHIVES - John Stossel, Steven Vincent, and Randy Barnett - Brief article

"Why does Uncle Sam offer me cheap insurance? 'It saves federal dollars,' replied James Lee Witt, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), when I did a 20/20 report on this boondoggle. 'If this insurance wasn't here,' he said, 'then people would be building in those areas anyway. Then it would cost the American taxpayers more [in relief funds] if a disaster hit.' That's government logic: Since we always mindlessly use taxpayer money to bail out every idiot who takes an expensive risk, let's get some money up front by selling them insurance first."

JOHN STOSSEL

"Confessions of a Welfare Queen"

"Exacerbating the pain of many Iraqis is a keen awareness of the world's record of apathy toward their plight. 'Where were the U.N. and our "fellow Arabs" when we were suffering?' Hasan asked. 'Where were the peace activists and leftists? How can they all accept the crimes of a dictator for so many years, then rise up in protest when a war begins to remove that dictator?'"

STEVEN...