Commentary By Ron Beasley
A few days ago I was taken to task by some for having no sympathy for Gene Cranick when his home burnt to the ground as the Fire department from a nearby city watched. People outside the city were allowed to buy into city fire protection for $75 a year - a lot less than shows up on my property tax bill. Mr Cranick had not payed. We have learned a few things since them and none of them have changed my feelings about Mr Cranicks fate. Mr Cranick admitted that he thought they would put the fire out and let him pay the $75. Why? Because they had let him do it a few years ago. This is something the city might do once but it's reasonable for them to insist that Mr Cranick and others subscribe on a regular basis there after. Some suggested that the city should have put out the fire and sent Mr Cranick a bill. As it turns out the city had tried this as well and was only able to actually collect 50% of the time. Gene Cranick was a freeloader and had no reason to expect he would receive a service he had not payed for.
That said I agree the system is flawed but there is evidence that the rural residents of the county approved of the flawed system and resisted changing it. A part of me has some sympathy for the ignorant rubes who were sold a Libertarian utopia by millionaire and billionaire follwers of Ayn Rand. They find out the hard way that the utopia they bought is no utopia at all. But a part of me has a hard time doing even that and this is why:
Tea Party survey shows fear of minorities
Members of the Tea Party, the burgeoning conservative movement whose membership is overwhelmingly white, feel they are losing ground to African-Americans and other minority groups, according to analysts who conducted a wide-ranging survey of the attitudes of its members.
With the movement playing an influential role in next month�s congressional elections, the Public Religion Research Institute poll highlighted the role its values are playing in the electoral debate.
Almost two-thirds � 64 per cent � of people who identify as members of the movement agreed �it is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others�, compared with 41 per cent of the general population.
Almost as many � 58 per cent � said that African-Americans and other minorities were getting too much attention from the government, much higher than the national average of 37 per cent, the poll found.
Many of these people are not against government as much as they are against government that gives things to "the other" - black people. I'd be willing to bet that Mr Cranick and many of his rural Tennessee neighbors are receiving government benefits of one kind of another. They don't want to do away with government programs they just don't want to pay for them and they don't want "the others" to benefit.
Gene Cranick is the victim of a bad system but it's a bad system that he and his neighbors chose so I won't shed a lot of tears when he suffers the consequences of his choices.
Letting a house burn down over $75 - that's just cold.
ReplyDeleteThe city either has to draw the line somewhere or end the service all together which would punish those who are willing to pay. That would be cold!
ReplyDeleteDraw the line somewhere else Ron.
ReplyDeleteI think there is no where else to draw the line. Mr Cranick paid the price for his freeloading irresponsibility. I don't have a problem with that. It would have been unfair to the people of the city that pay their property taxes and those outside the city who pay their $75 to do anything else. No people were threatened and even in the metro area I live in firefighters will not risk their lives for pets. Mr Cranick chose not to participate in the commons and paid a price.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to know what words like city, county, rural, or metro area mean in terms of size and resources. These jurisdictions are arbitrary and, like people, do not all have comparable resources. It's interesting that the "city" in the story is names South Fulton. In the Atlanta area Fulton County is an entity within the city limits that looks on the map like an old-fashioned gerrymander, probably because it is. North Fulton collects the most taxes because that's where more wealthy people live and South Fulton gets more benefits per capita because more poor people live there. This has been the case for years, to the point that property owners in North Fulton County sometimes "downsize" to some nearby county to enjoy lower taxes on homes half-million-dollars and up.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta's "charity hospital" (with one of the best emergency response reputations in the Southeast) has been the center of a local tug-o-war for decades with other metro hospitals doing all they can to keep it open (to carry the lion's share of the charity load) and the hospital itself fighting to stay alive on very limited resources.
The Tennessee hamlet they call South Fulton clearly has very limited resources and in light of Ron's research local officials are vindicated in the hard choices they are forced to make. A bigger jurisdiction with more resources might be better able to afford more cases like that of Mr. Cranick.
From a distance this looks like another example of conflict between the haves and the have-nots. Unfortunately the so-called "haves" in this case are really "have-nots" as well, since all are competing for fire protection which turns out to be a limited resource rather than a presumed benefit (safe water, police protection, food service establishments regularly inspected for sanitation, equitable property tax assessments, etc.) I'm sure the situation is not unique. In fact, it is likely more widespread than most of us like to imagine. Looking at this example of how best to ration limited resources (yes, I said ration) through the lens of health care, this looks like yet another case of "the haves" drawing a boundary of availability to the "have-nots" at the very edge of what it means to share.
Whether or not the man is a bigot is entirely irrelevant to the point of whether or not he deserves firefighting services, or health care, or police protection, or any other service that is generally considered a "public" service. Changing the topic from whether or not the decision to let the house burn down was a proper one to whether or not the guy is a worthy candidate of our sympathy isn't one I'm very fond of.
ReplyDeleteTo the actual topic of discussion, the case is very much demonstrative of why public services are supposed to be funded publicly, as in, through your tax dollars, so that there isn't any way you can "opt out" of the service. It is the same reason Obama made sure there was a mandate in the health care legislation to force people to buy insurance. If you don't make it mandatory, some people will "freeload" the system that allows them to apply only when they get sick and need treatment. The other option being letting them die untreated, which is the same as allowing the house to burn down because the subscription fee wasn't paid.
I'm also betting that much like going without health insurance costs the system more when something serious finally makes it mandatory for treatment as an emergency case where it could have been treated cheaply as a preventative measure, this policy will likely cost the county more in the long run than it would to just put the cost of the firefighting serves directly into everyone's tax assessment and make it universal. Maybe they are a bunch of ignorant, redneck, racist hicks who chose this kind of stupidity as a half-assed solution to their lack of public services, but as with many things in the political sphere, it also probably had some help in the form of a lack of a proper policy option even being put on the table.
Ultimately, the question is about whether or not you think firefighting is a public service or not. If it is, then it should be covered by public funds. Only if it isn't should the whole "fee for service" scenario even be considered.
I don't really disagree with anything you say BJ but here in the US of A commons like fire protection are handled on a local basis and as near as I can tell the residents of Obin county chose to do it this way and that's their choice to make. But those who chose not to participate in the system should not expect the benefits of the system. It's not just TN, the same thing happens here in Oregon.
ReplyDeleteI found this Olbermann compelling.
ReplyDeletehttp://myprops.org/channelcontent/Video-People-step-up-to-help-Gene-Cranick/
The neighbor offered to pay and Mr. Cranick tried to pay. Firemen went home sick about letting this man's house go down.
Ron,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your source for Cranick doing the same thing a couple of years ago? He's quoted elsewhere as saying he had paid the $75 in years past but simply "forgot" this year.
For the record, I tend to agree with you that although this is an imperfect system, it is the one the county residents wanted. And we are all about "freedom" in this country, aren't we?!
gyma
ReplyDeleteHe actually said as much in the Obermann interview.