Remember that story last year about the fire fighters that stood by and watched someone's house burn down? The local fire department's jurisdiction only covered the city (South Fulton, Tennessee) proper, and residents in the surrounding area had to pay a $75 "fire subscription" fee in order to receive the department's services. In fact, fire fighters only even showed up at the burning house because the flames started approaching the house of a neighbor who had paid the fee.
The instinct here is to assume that some local politician or city council or whatever just decided to be extra greedy, or there was some controversy regarding the surrounding region's legal status with regard to the city proper. But no, the policy was in place simply because the fire department didn't have the budget to cover anything beyond the city unless people specifically paid into it.
So these people lost their house because the residents of South Fulton wouldn't have gotten on board with whatever tax increase it would've taken to allow fire coverage of their entire community. Because my tax money putting out someone else's fire - that's socialism, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment