Recently a number of liberal blogs (including this one) have been pushing the radical suggestion of creating single-payer publicly-funded fire stations, to replace the current patchwork of private fire companies and fire insurance companies in American cities.
This change would be a disaster for fire fighting and would be contrary to fundamental American values.
Follow me below the fold.
The ten reasons why we must oppose single-payer government-funded fire stations:
- Competition is the only way to guarantee economic efficiency and technological upgrades.
- Americans need the freedom to choose their fire protection company. You can choose between union and non-union, traditional red trucks or day-glo yellow or even gang-tagged, Irish or Italian or Puerto Rican, Jewish or Christian evangelical, Tammany Hall bosses or Amish horse-and-buggy. One-size-fits-all is totalitarian and unAmerican.
- I don't want my tax dollars supporting fire protection for tax deadbeats, free-loaders, and all those liberal tax-exempt nonprofits like Hahvahd and those ahtsy theater groups.
- If fire protection is available to everyone without charge, people will abuse the system by calling 911 for every little brush fire, driving up costs. We need a system that gives people an incentive to act responsibly and take care of themselves.
- I don't want some government bureaucrat deciding how many trucks to send out when my house is on fire, or whose house gets saved first when multiple calls come in.
- If some people can't afford to pay for fire protection, that's OK. The American people are generous and will bring hoses and buckets to help out their neighbors. Between neighbors and private charity, everyone will get taken care of just fine.
- If you want an alternative, set up a neighborhood coop. If each homeowner buys six feet of hose and a couple of buckets, you should be all set.
- Competing private fire-fighting companies were good enough for Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers, so they're good enough for me.
- Of course it's somewhat inefficient to have the 911 dispatchers have to spend time sorting out which fire company to send on which call. But electronic record-keeping will streamline all that and eliminate the problem.
- It really doesn't matter to me if your house burns down, so if you don't care enough to buy fire protection, that's your choice. The Great Fires of London or Chicago are like the 1918 flu epidemic -- they just won't happen here, so we don't have to worry about anything other than protecting ourselves and our loved ones.