Son gets arrested for trying to confront fire chief for standing there allowing his parents house to burn down. (all over a $75 protection fee)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
The township had voted down repeatedly paying extra taxes to host it's own fire dept. Instead the township used a fee based multi-entity consortium.
Per Mitt Romney, disasters should be handled by private responders and not the Federal Government.
Lets look at another famous case of privatizing first responders
http://www.nj.com/...
A Florida lifeguard was recently fired for saving a life outside of the official swimming boundary.
Ever hear of public good? A public good is defined as an economic term referring to goods and services from which it collectively makes more sense to have the government provide than multiple private entities. Common public goods include the military, schools, roads and bridges, and even disaster relief.
The reason it makes sense to keep FEMA Federal is the heavy equipment, manpower, and supplies in a movable, mobile condition. In Romney's " leave it to the states" version, you would have some states with lots of resources and some without.
Would one state hesitate in providing it's stuff to another state in need? You could see a hypothetical situation where an Alabama, with little annual expenditure for disaster relief, requests aid from a state with great stockpiles of aid and personal.
With no reasonable expectation to get it's money or supplies back, Alabama could be out of luck.
Okay, aren't there private groups that do this? Like the Salvation Army?
Yes, however, the private groups have their limitations on resources. Charities are only as good as their volunteers. What happens in, as seen in the aftermath of Sandy, that whole towns are flooded and people are evacuated? What happens if the routes to town are flooded or snowed in? Where do the volunteers come in. Should the Salvation Army stock pile planes, helicopters, bulldozers, and and trucks? In each state?
The worst part of privatizing first responding and disaster relief is that disaster corps would be forced to carry at least an extra employee per every squad.
The job function of this extra person would be TO BILL YOU in a case of a disaster. They would handle the copious amounts of paperwork required.
Say a flood strands you on your roof. In Romney's world, private FEMA would be there to pick you up with a state of the art 5 million dollar helicopter and to bill you for $10,000 for services rendered. Instead you might refuse the ride and risk dying to call out for a neighbor to come 3 hours later with a dingy.
Failure to pay will result in liens or discontinued future disaster services upon your property, or death.
But never fear, Romney will have a solution. How about disaster insurance? Like medical insurance, disaster insurance pays for itself if FEMA has to come to your rescue. You pay a premium, the insurance companies get rich and you get services if disaster ever strikes. You pay lots more if you live in states with lots of disasters.
Then insurance companies determine if you can be helped in an emergency.
If you don't pay for insurance, perhaps you will face a choice of a $10,000 bill or have your house burn down.
By tomorrow , expect another flip flop by Romney on FEMA. I'll bet on it.
4:00 PM PT: If I were an Obama surrogate, I would publicly challenge Mitt to
flip flop on FEMA.
7:35 PM PT: Here is a real example of bill collectors hounding sick people in need of emergency care prior to treatment.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
From the New York Times:
" In April, Lori Swanson, the Minnesota attorney general, disclosed hundreds of Accretive’s internal documents that outlined aggressive collection tactics, including embedding debt collectors in emergency rooms and pressuring patients to pay before receiving treatment."