I think you're misunderstanding what they're saying. They're saying that federal funds should not be used to repair/replace infrastructure in places that are highly prone to natural disasters. If you have two total-loss natural disasters in less than 50 years either the infrastructure is unsuitable to the risks, or there is no infrastructure suitable for the risks.

Are you saying that unmitigated flood prone areas _should_ be habitable? And the cost of that underwritten with public funds?

There are people who have their house rebuilt every ~15 years from hurricanes with public funds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progr...

>The NFIP is managed and administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) through the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA).[1] The program is designed to provide an insurance alternative to disaster assistance to meet the escalating costs of repairing damage to buildings and their contents caused by floods.[2] As of August 2017, the program insured about 5 million homes (down from about 5.5 million homes in April 2010), the majority of which are in Texas and Florida.[3][4] The cost of the insurance program was fully covered by its premiums until the end of 2004, but it has had to steadily borrow funds since, primarily due to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, accumulating $25 billion of debt by August 2017.[3][5] In October 2017, Congress cancelled $16 billion of NFIP debt, making it possible for the program to pay claims. The NFIP owes $20.525 billion to the U.S. as of December 2020.[6]

I think being that you're so ruggedly individualistic, maybe pull yourself up by your bootstraps and pay for your own repairs?

If you're footing the bill for fair market insurance, those places quickly get returned to the environment because it makes no economic sense to build there. Or it does, and the federal government still doesn't have to pay for it.