What is a public good? An article today describes a house fire in Tennessee, where the firefighters refused to extinguish the fire because the owners hadn’t paid the annual voluntary fee for fire protection. The firefighters only intervened when the fire spread to a neighbor’s field and threatened the (fee-paying) neighbor’s house. Is fire protection excludable? In a small town, with widely separated houses, it may be-after all, what is the harm to me if the house of the family who hadn’t paid its tax burns down? In such a case, the best argument for requiring payment of the fire-protection fee is that there are economies of scale in providing protection. But then the fee should be compulsory-a tax. In a suburb or city, the density of dwellings means that there are such large externalities that fire protection is non-excludable.
(HT: TW)
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That’s not what I got from the article. What I read implied that the homeowner did NOT live within city limits and therefore is not subject to any city taxes. However, the city in question DOES provide emergency services to those who live outside the city limits as a courtesy. But, since they pay no city taxes, they are obliged to pay a small fee each year to get those services. Sounds extremely reasonable to me.
What would be the economic result in each case? If the city put out the fire, no one outside city limits would pay for the service because they know the fire dept would put it out anyways. If they refuse to put out the fire, they will likely see a jump in subscribers.
The voluntary fee wasn’t so voluntary, was it.
Every last member of the firefighters who showed up to that fire should be sued into oblivion.
Volunteer fire-fighting is a noble thing to do. And their service is outstanding and much appreciated. But when they arrive at a fire, it’s time to do the job.
Three dogs and a cat were killed in the fire.
I guess if people were in there as well, the firefighters–who were on the scene to protect neighbors who had paid the fee–would have also have left men, women and children to die in the fire.
Were I the homeowner, I’d put up a sign in front of the burnt-out hulk, “Your Tax Cuts at Work.”
The guy offered to pay the fee on the spot. Why was that not good enough for the firefighters? I’d sue. Apparently, relying on professionalism and altruism isn’t such a good thing.
Is fire protection expendable? I thought your were asking a rhetorical question in which the answer is obviously NO. But your serious. Wow. So rural folks deserve less than urban folks since their houses are farther apart? Or possible children loss all their possessions because their parents didn’t pay taxes?
Dude, you are the freak in freakonomics.
1. Volunteer fire departments are problematic. They are not professionals and therefore likely to do what they did in this case: discriminate. Knowing how the volunteers work around here, I can tell you that there is most likely much more to this story, and it could include multi-generational feuds. Fire suppression should be a public good that’s taxed.
2. Whether you call it karma or God’s vengeance, the result may be the same for the firefighters who stood by while a family’s home burned. If the firefighters call themselves Christian, perhaps they’ll be seeing flames in their forever future.
This shines a light on personal responsibility forone’s actions in building or buying a house where fire protection is problematic, or below sea level, or on a sandbar.
It’s hard to imagine a fire department pausing for even a second while someone looks up the list of fee-payers. Whoops! Missed their fee this year! Stand down everyone!
Answer the call. Sort out later who pays, and how much.
I’m sure they can figure out how much a response call costs. If you didn’t prepay (effectively an insurance payment), you pay the full cost.
This harkens back to *why* public fire departments were set up in the first place. Private fire companies (often controlled by criminal gangs) would do things like establish protection rackets, I mean “subscription fees”, or would negotiate a price *while* the fire was going. Multiple companies could show up and fight with each other, *while* the fire was going.
Put out the damn fire. Standing around watching is simply inexcusable — and I suspect a jury in the inevitable civil trial will also find it so.