I'VE sent my check to the Salvation Army for the relief of California's earthquake victims (Salvation Army, Earthquake Fund, 615 Slaters Lane, P.O. Box 269, Alexandria, VA 22313). People are in genuine distress and there is clearly a need for outside help. But I've also written letters to my congressional representatives, urging them to not provide federal aid for long-term relief. This is because I firmly believe long-term federal aid does more harm than good.

In the last century, when we were much poorer and more vulnerable, efforts to dispense federal disaster aid met fierce resistance. For example, the Texas Seed Bill of 1887, a measure to distribute $10,000 to help farmers in drought-stricken Texas, was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland. Why veto so small a sum for so good a cause? Cleveland justified his action stating: "A prevalent tendency to disregard the (government's) limited mission . . . should be steadfastly resisted to (enforce the lesson) that, though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people." Cleveland was being compassionate, not cruel, and his advice remains sound today. He understood the slippery slope of political aid.

Providing voluntary aid to one's fellow citizens is admirable, and emergency federal assistance (e.g., tents, food and water, and National Guard troops) for areas struck by major natural disasters is justified. Such aid serves a humanitarian purpose in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. It is cruel to apply narrowly economic criteria during this period. But it is vital that economic incentives play a major role during the recovery. Long-term federal aid that reduces the costs of rebuilding or repairing homes and other property is a subsidy. Like most subsidies, it distorts useful economic incentives and has perverse consequences.

The problem is twofold. First, when people do not bear the consequences of their actions they are encouraged to build and live in places prone to disasters, e.g., flood plains and earthquake zones. Second, the availability of federal aid encourages officials to grant disaster aid to areas that lack genuine need. We have seen raids on the Treasury grow ever larger as people come to expect federal bailouts.

The first problem is easy to understand. It is an example of what economists call "moral hazard." When people are not responsible for the full costs of their actions, they behave in riskier (i.e., potentially more costly) ways. Thus, rental cars are often abused because the people who rent them never directly pay for the wear and tear they inflict on transmissions or brakes. Very similar are people who build on earthquake faults, flood plains or barrier islands if they receive insurance that subsidizes the cost of repairing damaged homes, cars and so forth. They take fewer precautions, precautions that may extend to not living, or building expensive structures, in disaster-prone locations.

The moral question to ask is not whether people who are suffering should be helped, but what incentives are we creating for future behavior? If the government encourages unsafe construction practices and locations via subsidies, the human and material costs of disasters will only grow larger than otherwise. This includes significant environmental costs because many disaster-prone locations have substantial biological or aesthetic value. In effect, by helping victims now, we create many more victims, human and ecological, later.

The second consideration is equally important. It may have been President Cleveland's main concern. As long as federal disaster subsidies remain, politicians will have significant incentives to acquire those monies, even if they have not suffered anything remotely approximating a disaster. The prospect of receiving federal aid may have prompted Montana's governor to declare a state of emergency following the eruption of Mount St. Helens (May 18, 1980), even though the post-eruption situation in Montana was far from disastrous.

When aid is available, opportunism can color decisions. President Clinton had incentives to move quickly to disburse emergency aid in part because of California's importance to his re-election and to the 1994 congressional races. Making federal aid available during real disasters generates pleas for such aid when more local and perhaps private efforts would suffice. Eventually, disaster aid disproportionately goes to the politically shrewd or powerful. Moreover, the generosity of federal aid programs rachets upward while non-federal matching proportions slide.

Even when raw political considerations are not paramount, the question remains: Where do we draw the line? When do disasters merit federal subsidies? Clear distinctions are impossible and the mindset "they got theirs and I should get mine" dominates since relative need or merit cannot be exactly determined.

Direct federal costs grow, politicians feed on federal monies, and worst of all, the impulse toward private giving is eroded. The loss of such civic virtue is of vital concern, but is exceedingly difficult to measure. Its presence builds bonds of fellowship among Americans.

We should feel compassion for the quake victims. But let us not pursue policies that foster worse situations in the future. It is tempting to open the federal purse. But we should do so with great reluctance, realizing that some consequences are quite negative. President Cleveland got it right: the government should not support the people. It is indeed a slippery slope.

Correction: In my Jan. 12 column, I incorrectly state the National Park Service was established in 1906. It was set up in 1916.