Firefighters Let House Burn Because Owner Didn't Pay Fee

Dthief writes "From MSNBC: 'Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.'"

Comments

Well Duh

[SatanicPuppy]

Uhhh, yea. That's how it works.

Your city and county taxes pay for fire departments. If your county is too poor to pay for a fire department, you may have a volunteer fire department, or the nearest municipality may charge a fee to cover service. If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

It ain't rocket science. Some bubba sets his own house on fire, and then whines because the people he didn't pay, didn't come to put it out. I've lived in Tennesee: they really don't like taxes there. That's fine, but there are consequences.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Ironically, Tennessee is a state that steadfastly refuses to pass an income tax and in which any talk of raising taxes is met with crazy uproar. They had an actual riot back in 2001 when the state tried to introduce an small income tax.

This same guy who complained that the firefighters didn't save his house would probably be the first in line to scream like a girl if anyone dared propose a tax increase to pay for a fire station.

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. If you want something, the money has to come from somewhere. If you want the government "off your back" then fine, but be prepared to fight your own damn fire.

Re:Well Duh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The tricky part here is the externalities(as usual, externalities are a bitch). So, the Cranicks don't pay, they don't get service. Simple enough. There might be some ethical objections; but the economics line up just fine.

Similarly, letting them pay $75 at time of use is a no-go. Fighting a fire costs way more than $75. That's an insurance price, not a retail service price. If you allow people to buy insurance after they need it, you either go bankrupt or the cost of insurance ends up equaling the retail cost of service. You then lose the risk-pooling function of insurance. Now, for things as potentially valuable as houses and their contents, it would be sensible to have an actual retail price(set ahead of time, and publically known, to prevent extortion) that an uninsured person could pay to save a burning building, there are probably a fair few situations where the price of fighting the fire is lower than the cost of replacing the structure, so being able to pay a retail cost of approximately actual cost+service fee would be sensible for both householder and firefighting company.

However, here is where things get unpleasant: Because the Cranicks didn't pay, the firefighters allowed the fire to burn merrily, growing and spreading until it hit somebody who had paid. Now, since the paying householder's property is on fire, they likely suffered some thousands or 10s of thousands in direct combustion, smoke, and water damage. They paid, and they got shitty service. Had the firefighters used the Cranicks property to fight and stop the fire, they could have saved their customers from any damage, and done a much better job of serving them, the ones who actually paid.

Of course, if it becomes known that firefighters will fight fires around an insured property, the obvious strategy is for property owners to club together, buy insurance for 1 plot and get insurance for all for only $75/n. The fire department couldn't support itself on that. If they tried to offer two tiers, a $75 "Fires fought on your property only" and a more expensive "Fires that threaten your property fought", then this creates a perverse incentive: If I live next to a wealthy looking neighbor, I can get him to buy my fire insurance for me just by making my property more dangerous to his. Don't want to encourage that.

This is why firefighting, like certain public health measures, is very hard to elegantly force into a market model unless you are so far in the sticks that each man really is an island. Fires spread, just like diseases. Whether or not the firefighters come to my neighbor's aid matters to me(aside from any debatable moral stuff); because the raging inferno that is his burning house just needs the wind to shift for my house to be next. Even if I've paid my fee, having thousands in water damage from the firefighters, plus smoke and any combustion that occurs before they get there isn't really satisfying. I'd really rather have them fight the fire where it starts, and never have to suffer it myself, rather than insist that everyone pay, and let pockets of fire spread until they endanger me. Same way, even if I don't give a fuck about the life of the guy making my sandwich at the deli, and I don't care how poor he is, I sure do care about what immunizations he has, and whether he can take sick days; because his germs are getting into my food supply.

That is the real complexity of this story, in my opinion. There are some moral questions, but those are debatable, and there really should be a retail price set; but that is a bookkeeping matter; but if I were the insured householder I'd be absolutely livid about this. I paid my dues, and I get lousy service because they are trying to make a point? You could have completely protected my property; but chose to let a nearby building become a danger to it, when I pay you to protect my property? WTF?

Re:Well Duh

[tmosley]

Texas doesn't have an income tax either, and we manage not to burn down.

The answer isn't always more government.

Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Drakkenmensch]

You have to pay your taxes if you want municipal services. If you wave it away claiming you don't want government interference in your life, then the firefighters will not interfere with fire burning down your house. The guy sadly got exactly what he argued for in the first place when he turned the city down.

socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

Re:socialism

[RoFLKOPTr]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

Translation: "When you don't have socialism, the prick that refuses to subscribe to a voluntary fire service from a neighboring city because he doesn't want to have to pay money for things he doesn't think he needs doesn't get fire service. When you DO have socialism, the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want." Yeah, sounds like a great plan.

Though, to be fair, there are a few things that really ought to be socialized, fire service being one of them. I'm more using the above as a metaphor for other various government and non-government services that aren't as important to the lives of other people around you.

Another win

[geekoid]

for libertarians everywhere.

Re:Another win

[sarhjinian]

Libertarianism has the same flaws as communism: it doesn't really work--especially on a large scale---because actual people are involved, and people are not neat little Randian or Marxist entities but complex, real-world things. Arguing that "it's better" or "real libertarianism has never been tried" is exactly the same kind of self-delusional wankery that Marxists exercise.

You couldn't guarantee that "a libertarian would have put out the fire" because it's equally likely that a libertarian might buy the fire department and then go around starting fires in order to make money. Libertarians are people, too, and subject to the same nobility and failings as people everywhere.

This is why democratic socialism will win every single damn time: it's not perfect (far from it) but it's built assuming that people will be people, whereas know-it-all totalitarism or anarchism are divorced from how people actually act.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SatanicPuppy]

Wouldn't work. Look, it's not like there are fire hydrants out there. That fire department depends on those fees to get tank trucks and other stuff you have to have to fight rural fires. If you could just pay as you go, then no one would ever pay, and the fire department wouldn't be able to afford the equipment.

No, that's not it at all

[Space cowboy]

They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.

I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.

Simon

Re:No, that's not it at all

[0123456]

I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.

How long do you think there would be firefighters to call if you could just pay $75 when you have to call them out because your house is on fire? That's like crashing your car into a Ferrari and _then_ offering to pay $100 for insurance because you 'forgot' to pay the premium beforehand.

If that behaviour became the norm then no-one would pay and the next time someone's house caught fire the whole area would burn down.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Tangential]

The real problem is why this is a voluntary fee?

From what I've read, this is a voluntary fee because they do not live within the city limits. The city has no obligation to also serve people who reside outside of it. When I was a kid, folks out in the country (outside of the city limits) could pay a fee to have their kids attend the city school system, instead of the county schools. This is pretty similar.

It looks like this homeowner specifically declined to pay the $75. If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[hibiki_r]

It is quite different.

A regular insurance policy is nothing more than a bet: You pay X per year, and in case of your death, your beneficiaries get Y back: If putting X in an investment fund would have netted you more than Y at the time of death, the insurance company wins, if Y is greater, you and your family win, so paying for coverage after you want to make a claim just doesn't work.

Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire. It's not a zero sum game. If I give you, right there and then, four times as much as it costs to put out the fire, as it happens, both sides win, as they are both better off than if the value of the house just evaporates.

So the real problem is not the fact that this guy was unwise in his choice to not pay for the fire coverage, but on the fact that there was no mechanism to allow him to make a far higher contribution on site, for a final result that was superior to every party involved.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[rochberg]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?"

First correction: He did not offer to pay $75. He offered to pay whatever the cost to put out the fire.

If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

You are exactly right. So clearly, just billing the $75 is not adequate. So, like you said, treat it as insurance. Consider the parallels to the medical world (at least the idealized version of it). If you have health insurance and go to the emergency room, you pay $X, which is significantly less than the actual cost of service. If you don't have insurance, you have to pay for the actual services used. So do the same thing in this situation. The invoice could be:

• 8 firefighters, billed at $200/hour for the duration. If it takes 3 hours of work, that's $4800.
• $5000 for use of the truck.
• $1000 for the water.
• $500 for the call to dispatch.
• Grand total: $11,300

Again, that's what the guy offered to pay...not just the $75. Basically, it comes out to skipping the $75 payment for 150 years. To me, that's plenty of incentive to pay $75 a year for guaranteed service.

Interesting follow-on to this story: One of Cranick's relatives later went to the fire station and punched the chief that ordered the firefighters not to put out the fire (even though they were on the scene). He's now been charged with assault, but I know a lot of people who want to contribute to the guy's legal defense fund.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[demonlapin]

He has no relationship with the town in question. He doesn't live in its jurisdiction. He could choose to subscribe to their fire service, or not. He chose not, and by doing so took a gamble. He lost.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>lowered property values for the entire neighborhood...

Bullshit. That's the same argument the Housing Association gave when they refused to let my parents put an antenna on the roof (to get TV). The lawyer, who was quite good, dug-out the 1996 Telecommuncations Act which gave my parents the right to erect an antenna. He also noted several other laws the HA was in violation of (requiring a certain kind of grass), which eventually led to the judge dismantling the HA for multiple counts of abuse against citizens.

You see: Congress decided freedom to "pursue happiness"
  was more important than property values. Freedom means nothing, if you are not truly free to make your own choices.

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it? You don't. Neither do you have a right to force me to insure my house.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[adisakp]

Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire. It's not a zero sum game. If I give you, right there and then, four times as much as it costs to put out the fire, as it happens, both sides win, as they are both better off than if the value of the house just evaporates.

It's the exact same as insurance -- by charging a small fee per house, the fire dept is betting that only 1 house out of every couple thousand will catch on fire per year.

If you let them pay after the fact, both sides don't win. It costs way more than $75 to put out a fire -- the cost is amortized by the fact that a fire only occurs for every couple thousand or so citizens who pay the fee. The actual cost of putting out the fire may be $100,000 or more (if you consider the cost of fire dept, vehicles, having fire fighters on standby, etc). If you allow people to pay $75 only when you need services, the fire department will incur a huge loss because it's "betting" that 1,999 out of 2,000 people won't have fires when they charge the $75 fee.

The only way to make the cost a win for the city/fire-dept side would be to charge the person the actual cost of putting out the fire (and running the fire department / number of fires per year). This might result in a charge of $100,000 - $200,000 to the person and might actually be more than their house and possessions are worth.... and note this isn't really a win for the city - it's just break-even cost -- and that assumes you can collect the $200,000 from someone whose house just burned down because insurance doesn't pay for saved houses, only destroyed ones.

The only practical way to do it is to enforce the fact that when someone opts out of paying for a service, they have opted out of receiving that service.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[Idimmu Xul]

This is the kind of thing taxes are for - essential public services. The fact that the home burned to the ground was a travesty, but not so great as the lack of funding for the fire department in the first place. All that being said, charging residents $75 just in case is absurd. His county should pay his losses and fix their tax situation!

A publicly funded fire brigade? What's next? Public healthcare? You dirty socialist!

Libertarian Paradise

[Tablizer]

Nuff sed.

Re:This is America

[SatanicPuppy]

Dude, it's the state, not the country. Don't blame fricking Obama for the problems of Fulton County Tennesee's rural fire department! That's just absurd.

In most other states, there'd be a state income tax, or a hefty county tax, or a sales tax or something to support fire coverage for all the citizens in the county. They didn't want that there, so there is a fee. And if you don't pay it, you're screwed. And it's their own bed to lie in.

yup

[nomadic]

In case any of you are wondering, this is exactly the reason why a lot of us detest libertarianism, and refuse to vote for Ron Paul not because they think he can't win but because they think he would ruin this country.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Basically you are now forcing firefighters to be bill collectors. What do they do, negotiate with the guy on the spot?

No, the real problem is with having a voluntary fee for a collective, necessary service. Don't blame the firefighters. Blame the government that set up a no-win situation.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[metlin]

You've essentially described one of the fundamental problems with public goods -- if it's provided for the benefit of all, how do you avoid free-riders?

While there are several solutions (and theories) in place, the fact remains that you'll always have a percentage of free-riders. Of course, in a purely capitalistic model, this is solved because every service has an associated cost with it, and those that don't pay the cost don't get the service (e.g. this case). In socialism, you pay a larger chunk (e.g. taxes) and you get a plethora of services, freeing you from the worry of particular services -- but then, you do not get to pick and choose.

Typically, life-or-death services (e.g. police/fire) fall under the latter, but I guess rural Tennessee is different.

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rape

[Joe The Dragon]

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay the cops will just stand there as you get raped as you did not pay the fee?

fireman and cops should be payed for with taxes!

also will the fireman pass up a burning car as they don't know if the people in the car payed?

This what the republic want for health care but with health care buying on your own can cost $1000+ month with a big list of stuff not coved and if you are sick then it can be hard to get it at all. Some job only have that min med that cost about $700+ year + copays with $2000 MAX YEAR PAY OUT AND that is joke care.

A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

There's a lot of libertarians here on Slashdot. Well, this is what a libertarian utopia looks like, kids. If this strikes you as unjust and cruel, you'd probably better stop listening to Glen Beck on the teevee, and start voting for candidates who believe that government is a useful thing.

(If, on the other hand, you're happy with the outcome of this story, that's cool, you're not a hypocrite, and, we can agree to disagree.)

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", the $75 fee is not to put out the fire, it's to keep the fire department running when there *isn't* a fire. You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

Remember, they're not *his* firefighters, they're from the next town over. His nonexistent local government has no fire service: I bet it would have no objection if you wanted to buy yourself a tanker truck and set up your own private fire company.

But nobody does this, because fire protection is an absolutely shitty way to make a living in the 21st century. There's no profit in it unless you run around setting fires yourself.

Unprofitable but indispensable social services: this is what government is good at.

Re:A Libertarian World

[hibiki_r]

it can't if the fee for 'on the spot' payment is very low, but it could if the fee was high enough to keep the department running between fires. If the fire department takes 20K to run every month, and there's on average one fire a month, a non-subscription fee of 20K for putting out a fire without subscription would allow the fire department to run with a minimum initial investment, either by a private party or the government.

The problem here is that there was no procedure whatsoever to deal with a non-payer whose house can be saved. A form contract in the fire truck that the owner can sign to accept some kind of lien on the property to pay for the fire extinguishing costs plus a penalty would have saved the house, taught the homeowner a lesson and made the fire department richer.

Re:Uh..

[geekoid]

NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.

Everybody hates the government

[SlappyBastard]

Right up until the moment they need the government. Ain't it a bitch?

I was raised liberal in a redneck part of the country. And a lot of kids I grew up with thought it was clever to call the cops "the pigs". The first time my mom caught me pulling that shit, she pulled me aside and bitched me out, telling me, "You won't be calling a pig on the day you need a cop."

Frankly, I like nice roads. I like a school tax that enables stores to hire cashiers who can read. I like the idea that if any brown people overthrow their government while I'm on vacation that I can go to the embassy and the Marines will fly me the fuck out of there.

I'm a supporter of paying higher taxes -- just make sure I get some decent services to go with it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

The City of South Fulton doesn't have the authority to issue fines to people who don't live in their town.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[iamhassi]

"Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?"

I was thinking he should get a fine, like parking meters, it's only 50 cents an hour to park YMMV and no one's watching too closely and you could park and not pay, but if you're caught it's a $50+ fine.

I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

Re:Uh..

[geekoid]

It set the precedent that your human beings.

I don't know why this is missed by people here, but OBVIOUSLY you would bill him for putting it out. OBVIOUSLY I mean the entire cost not the 75 dollars.

I would get fired before I let someones home burn down. To hide behind 'policy' and rules is a way to cover up entrenched callousness and cowardice.

The whole thing reeks of 3rd world policy.

Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[ilsaloving]

While yes it is sad that this happened to the family, I think this is a fantastic example of what happens when right wing capitalist values meet reality. They are so obsessed over the evils of socialism, how forcing people to pay for services 'used by other people' is anathema.

So here is what happens when you don't feel you should have to put money into the collective pool for social services. Thanks but no thanks. If some relatively small taxes is the price I have to pay for this kind of peace of mind, I'll take it every time.

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[cplusplus]

It has been said many times, and is so appropriate here - "Taxes buy civilization"

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BobMcD]

Fire dept and police department services are NOT optional. This isn't a cell phone subscription or some opt in bullshit. These are required services needed to live.

If the voters in that district agreed with you, they would have approved the tax.

Thankfully this is America, where democracy still holds some kind of value, and the actual residents of the county get to decide what their laws say.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Bingo.

So instead of pointing at the big bad nasty firefighters, go point the finger at the "government is evil" crowd who insists that any tax is bad and that we would be better off living in a libertarian utopia.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Garrett Fox]

That's true, this is like the health care debate. In this case, someone chose not to buy the service, and the public outcry will be, "That's terrible! No one should have that choice!" Also, note that the fire victim was surprised that the FD wouldn't take his $75 while the fire was in progress. If it were health care he needed, he'd complain that his house being currently on fire is a "pre-existing condition" and that an insurer should be legally forced to insure him the moment he feels like paying.

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[spasm]

"No, the real problem is with having a voluntary fee for a collective, necessary service. Don't blame the firefighters. Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."

I think you mean "Blame the voters who are so anti-tax that they refuse to provide the necessary funds to even cover collective, necessary services."

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[stdarg]

Of course this would have no impact on your taxes, your taxes would be just as high.

Why?

Why is that surprising?

[BergZ]

If libertarians had their way and fire departments were privatized across the country:
Incidents like this would become an almost daily affair.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

An interesting sub-topic to be sure. Do you think he had the right to expect those services to be available to him knowing that he refused to pay into the system? I wasn't referring to the larger question of the legality of Health Care and I don't want to get too side tracked from the topic at hand with such. I was more interested in the fact that he refused to pay for the service and then expected them to provide such services for the original fee after it became an emergency.

I see that as very similar to folks who refuse to pay for health insurance, and then expect to be able to go to the emergency room for treatment. It just struck me as a little too close in general situation to the health care debate.

Apologies if I didn't make that clear.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Altus]

But emergency rooms are still required to treat the grievously injured, insured or not. What if there had been a life on the line, someone trapped inside the building. Does some kid have to die because his dad was to cheep or too stupid to pay a fee?

I understand why this happened this way but I don't see why it couldnt be structured differently. If wilderness rescue can charge a lost hiker for finding them without that hiker having to pay a $75 fee ahead of time just in case they get lost, why cant the fire department charge someone who didn't pay the fee up front. Obviously the fee for putting out the fire should be a lot more than what the person would pay if they just paid in advance but it should be an option.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

You don't pay taxes in Europe? You pay for it whether you realize it or not. In this case, this individual is in a separate county, so his taxes did not pay for that service. He is frankly no eligible to receive those services if he didn't pay for them.

As for me, I would never be so stupid as to refuse to pay a $75 dollar fee for fire service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Yes, we get it, we all get it, the whole of Europe gets it. We KNOW that public services are paid for with taxes, we don't think they magically exist for free. The other thing is that we tend to pay our taxes up to the top, and then the top ensures that stuff like firefighting are paid-for nationwide. That also means that there isn't a jobsworth being employed to check whether homes currently being burnt down are covered. Frankly, this situation is stupid even for all the people who DO pay because time is wasted checking to see if they're on the list (and faffing around resolving mis-spellings, no-doubt) when the firefighters SHOULD be going to put out the fire immediately.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[AAWood]

As a Brit, yes, I pay taxes, and if my house was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my friend who has a part-time job and pays less taxes was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my other friend who is on benefits (which you'd call "welfare") because this wretched economy means they can't get an interview much less a job, and as such doesn't pay taxes in any meaningful sense was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out. And if the house of my other other friend, who has a debilitating illness which means she couldn't work if she wanted to and gets just enough money from the government to pay for the food, rent and carers she needs was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out.

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness. And yeah, a few lazy people abuse it; frankly, I'll accept that knowing that if anyone I care about is in need, no matter whether due to malice, bad luck or their own stupidity, they'll be helped, without needing to sign up for a series of different plans years beforehand.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things.

Huh? I believe that I'm "forced" to pay for Interstate Highways, Federal Police, the Military, and plenty of other things which are of only indirect benefit. If you don't like the health care proposal, do us all a favor and dislike it for a real reason, ok?

Right now I'm paying for people who don't have health insurance through higher hospital costs passed on to me due to all of the freeloaders who use the ER as their only doctor. I'd rather everyone pay less to keep them healthy and maybe employed, or at least employable, rather than pay more to have them sit around sick and on welfare. People losing their house is this manner is a direct analogy; too cheap to pay for their own fire service, they're even too cheap to pay $75 insurance for another town's fire service, they are now homeless and my taxes will go toward their welfare. Make the bastards pay a little so that we don't have to pay it all for them. Heck, the fire dept. was stupid too. It will cost us all a ton to help this family back onto their feet; if we'd just all be "forced" to pay in equally then this wouldn't happen. Or, give up, tell them to go homeless, and then pay more for police to arrest and house them (in prison) when they steal to eat.

Fact is, we all pay for everyone's stupidity. It's only a matter of how we pay, and how much. Your choice.