jmdrake
10-08-2010, 06:46 AM
I emailed this to a local conservative talk show host, but I'll respost it here.
Hello Michael. I was listening to you respond on air yesterday to the angry email about your views on the Tennessee fire. After reading more about the incident, I came to the firm conclusion that you are BOTH wrong. I agree with your position that the homeowner who didn't pay was irresponsible and should have to face the consequences of his inaction. Where I disagree is when you included not only his family and his pets, but also his NEIGHBORS as people the he was solely responsible for. If his NEIGHBORS had paid for fire protection, then they had a right to expect that the fire department would not only respond when THEIR homes were on fire, but also when fire THREATENED their homes. After all, fire can spread. Consider a certain fire that started in San Fransisco when a milk cow kicked over a lantern. I'm not sure how the SF fire service was structured at the time, but if it didn't respond to that fire as soon as possible, it certainly SHOULD have. The facts of this case are somewhat different because this is a rural area where houses are presumably not close together. But there still is the risk of forest fire, even though it's not so bad in Tennessee.
Another way to look at it, if I paid for fire protection and an old abandoned house that was close to mine was on fire, I would want the fire department to respond NOT to save the other house, but to protect MINE from catching on fire. In a truly free market there would be competing fire services and some would likely offer such "preventive" fire protection at a higher rate while others would only offer "We come once your house is on fire" service. I know which one I would pick. That leads me to another point. Conservatives such as yourself are falling into the trap of defending this as "free market". It is NOT free market. Despite what the liberal media would have you believe, that particular fire department was no more "private" than the post office. It's a government run monopoly, supported BOTH by taxes AND by subscription.
So what's the solution? This is a "free rider" problem. Your friend Ralph Bristol already gave the solution with regards to health care. After all we don't want people with communicable disease to go without treatment, but under the current system some people get free service without ever paying for it. Ralph's solution is to let them continue to get the service up front, but stick them with a bill that they can NEVER get out of. The problem of course is that some people are "judgment proof". But that's not a problem in this case because the bill can be attached to the PROPERTY instead of to the person. What should have happened in this case is that the fire department should have responded as normal, but then calculated a bill based on the hourly rates for the firefighters involved, the prorated fuel and maintenance of the trucks, and any other reasonable overhead or expenses. Then the percentage of the fire department's budget that is supported through taxes should have been subtracted, so as to only reflect the part of the cost that is supported through subscriptions. Then this bill should have attached as a lien on the property, or better yet simply be added to next year's property taxes. Of course the home owner should be allowed to opt out and just let his house burn to the ground, in which case the fire department still should have responded, but only to keep the fire from spreading.
There ya go. A simple solution to what is in reality a simple problem.
Respectfully,
John M. Drake
Hello Michael. I was listening to you respond on air yesterday to the angry email about your views on the Tennessee fire. After reading more about the incident, I came to the firm conclusion that you are BOTH wrong. I agree with your position that the homeowner who didn't pay was irresponsible and should have to face the consequences of his inaction. Where I disagree is when you included not only his family and his pets, but also his NEIGHBORS as people the he was solely responsible for. If his NEIGHBORS had paid for fire protection, then they had a right to expect that the fire department would not only respond when THEIR homes were on fire, but also when fire THREATENED their homes. After all, fire can spread. Consider a certain fire that started in San Fransisco when a milk cow kicked over a lantern. I'm not sure how the SF fire service was structured at the time, but if it didn't respond to that fire as soon as possible, it certainly SHOULD have. The facts of this case are somewhat different because this is a rural area where houses are presumably not close together. But there still is the risk of forest fire, even though it's not so bad in Tennessee.
Another way to look at it, if I paid for fire protection and an old abandoned house that was close to mine was on fire, I would want the fire department to respond NOT to save the other house, but to protect MINE from catching on fire. In a truly free market there would be competing fire services and some would likely offer such "preventive" fire protection at a higher rate while others would only offer "We come once your house is on fire" service. I know which one I would pick. That leads me to another point. Conservatives such as yourself are falling into the trap of defending this as "free market". It is NOT free market. Despite what the liberal media would have you believe, that particular fire department was no more "private" than the post office. It's a government run monopoly, supported BOTH by taxes AND by subscription.
So what's the solution? This is a "free rider" problem. Your friend Ralph Bristol already gave the solution with regards to health care. After all we don't want people with communicable disease to go without treatment, but under the current system some people get free service without ever paying for it. Ralph's solution is to let them continue to get the service up front, but stick them with a bill that they can NEVER get out of. The problem of course is that some people are "judgment proof". But that's not a problem in this case because the bill can be attached to the PROPERTY instead of to the person. What should have happened in this case is that the fire department should have responded as normal, but then calculated a bill based on the hourly rates for the firefighters involved, the prorated fuel and maintenance of the trucks, and any other reasonable overhead or expenses. Then the percentage of the fire department's budget that is supported through taxes should have been subtracted, so as to only reflect the part of the cost that is supported through subscriptions. Then this bill should have attached as a lien on the property, or better yet simply be added to next year's property taxes. Of course the home owner should be allowed to opt out and just let his house burn to the ground, in which case the fire department still should have responded, but only to keep the fire from spreading.
There ya go. A simple solution to what is in reality a simple problem.
Respectfully,
John M. Drake