Nevada Governor to Bill Fossett Widow For Search

sonchat writes with news that Nevada's "Gov. Jim Gibbons intends to bill the widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett for $687,000 the state spent in searching for the famed aviator last fall, a spokesman said." Though in some places charging for the cost of a search effort is routine, apparently in Nevada it is not.

Comments

Though is some places?

[Wandering Wombat]

It is? Really?

Seriously, though, this is exceptionally lame. "We tried to find your husband.... and, uh, we didn't. All those helicopters, you know those aren't free..."

Re:Though is some places?

[SatanicPuppy]

I'd consider that more of a grey area. Those people are paid specifically for traffic enforcement, cleanup, maintenance, etc, and the people who are in the accidents are liable for damages (through their insurance), and are on the road where they are supposed to be.

In cases like this where someone gets themselves lost, it's a lot less clear-cut. The state usually puts forth a ton of effort to find these people, and often they end up eating thousands of dollars of rescue costs racked up by some joker who didn't even take the most basic precautions.

This particular situation annoys me because he didn't tell anyone specifically where he was going, didn't have a radio beacon, didn't seem to have a radio, or didn't feel the need to use it when he got into trouble. That's irresponsible, but he can be assumed to have had a pretty good idea of what he was doing, and obviously was capable and experienced.

The ones that really jerk my chain are the people who have zero competence and zero experience who are constantly getting stuck on mountains, lost in national parks, stranded in the ocean, etc, etc, etc. They need to be held accountable for their lack of planning.

Re:Though is some places?

[Lemmy Caution]

The proper response is to stop funding them and let them run themselves like a business, then. I'm no libertarian, but when they try to be both a tax-supported service and a business enterprise - well, screw them.

Re:Though is some places?

[Cajun Hell]

Now, I put in crazy hours (80-100 hour weeks) and I *earned* that money

There's the problem. The only way we're going to improve the economy, is if people stop producing and working so much. If you work twice as much as a 40-hour-a-week person, you should be punished for it, by paying more tax instead of less.

It's the economy, stupid!

Here's the kicker, though. I spend maybe 1 or 2 days a week in my state, and I spend the rest of the time traveling.

If you can time travel, I'm not surprised you only spend 1 or 2 days out of every week, and have disorienting "crazy hours." On the plus side, you should be able to afford just about any tax at all. Geez, what a whiner. Just take some year-2000 dollars and buy some IBM stock in 1918, and you'll be skeet-shooting the Mona Lis-- oh wait, I misunderparsed your statement. Never mind. Sorry about the taxes.

There. You've been waiting for someone to say it, and I'm saying it: sorry about the taxes.

Re:Though is some places?

[ultranova]

When an actual fire occurs, they bill it to the responsible party, if any, and typically it would be covered by fire insurance.

So basically, if a fire occurs, my best bet is to not call the fire department but try to put it out myself, which of course risks having it spread and burn down half the city.

Oh, and since the insurance company wants profits, I'll end up paying more than if I just funded the fire department completely through the taxes. A lovely setup. Clearly libertarian in origin.

Budget smudget

[drquoz]

This is just plain awful. I'm sure she's going through enough without this added on top of everything. Shouldn't be charging anybody, especially the widow.

Re:Budget smudget

[daveywest]

I live in Nevada, so I think my opinion ought to count for something.

Not to be heartless, but the guy was known for adventuring -- or in other words -- endangering his own life for thrills. He flaunted standard safety protocols for entertainment, and lost his life for it.

And lets not forget he had the financial resources to undertake these adventures.

Even in death, he should pay to clean up the mess he left.

Re:Budget smudget

[R2.0]

You are reacting to the flame-y headline. It should have read that Fosset's ESTATE would be billed. The guy had a metric fuckton of money - it's not like she's some woebegone character handling her husbands affairs alone.

Re:Budget smudget

[Arcane_Rhino]

While I think you have some legitimate points, lets not forget that, unless the state contracted outside of its normal search and rescue crews, the resources to search for the guy were already functioning and operational.

I would be curious to see how much additional expense was really accrued. The fact that the money to pay for the operation (fuel, wear and tear on equipment, salaries, etc) came from the "Search and Rescue" budget (I do not really know their specific accounting practices) rather than the maintenance, training, and personnel budgets do not mean that the tax-payer ACTUALLY incurred additional costs.

I can understand...

[tamuct01]

...if this was some wild goosechase. I mean that if you fraudulently sent the Police, etc. looking for someone, then you should be billed for it. But if it was a legitimate missing persons/accident, etc. as it appears to be in Fossett's case, then the next of kin should not be billed for the expense.

In other news

[fireman sam]

The US government has decided to send the $3Trillion bill to Iraq for the search and rescue of the weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) even though the lost WMDs were never located.

Re:Have to inform my loved ones

[flaming error]

I could care less how much it costs. My wife would insist on a preliminary estimate.

Re:I don't care if he was rich, this is an outrage

[lgw]

What's next, getting a bill from the police for investigating a crime done against you? Funny you should mention that: back when I used to delvier pizza for a living, I would get robbed and/or assaulted on a somewhat regular basis. On one occasion, I returned to the store still bleeding to encounter a police officer leaving the store with his free pizza. He called me and my manager idiots for delivering to that neighborhood, and wrote me a ticket for expired license plates. I got the bill, but the investigation: not so much.

You can imagine my opinion on the police.

Taxes! Taxes! Taxes!

[fm6]

Dude, you seriously need to fire your accountant. Nobody pays 50% income tax any more. And why on earth is your legal residence in a high-tax state if you're hardly ever there? George Bush the First has his legal residence in Texas (no state income tax at all) where he hardly ever goes any more. The cute part is that his legal residence is a hotel room where he hasn't stayed for years.

Now, to answer your question "why the fuck are you taxing me". Well, OK, maybe you deserve free search and rescue. But only a tiny part of your taxes goes to toward emergency services. A good chunk goes to things like roads (you own a car, right?) education (OK, you already got yours, but where's that fancy job of yours if there's no ongoing supply of well-educated new hires?) law enforcement (having a mugger arrested is free) food inspection (you eat, right?) and a lot of other stuff I'm sure you actually use.

Actually, the biggest single item you get from your taxes is a military establishment that costs more than the rest of the world's combined. I happen to think we could do without that, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that issue.