In the comments on property taxes, people in the comments were talking about making things like the fire service into a subscription service, or perhaps using fees each time that service is called. Like most things, those methods have been tried (and are being used in some areas), have been talked about on this blog, and largely don’t work. Let’s take a look:
Subscription Fees
Charge a small fee for fire departments to respond to members’ homes. Anyone who isn’t a member, too bad for you. Of course, there will be those who take their chances, and some of them will lose. That is, they will decide they will save some money by not paying the fees, then will try to gin up public support when they lose the bet, their home is on fire, and the fire department refuses to come out. In fact, that is exactly what happened in rural Tennessee back in 2010.
The South Fulton Fire Department charged a $75 annual fee to be a member of their fire association. Those who paid the fee were eligible for that fire department to come out and put out any fires on your property. Gene Cranick chose to roll the dice and not pay the fee, thereby saving himself that $75 a year. On September 29, 2010, he lost that bet and his house caught fire.
The fire started when the Cranicks’ grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.
“We wasn’t on their list,” he said the operators told him. So now he complains that he should have been able to pay the fee after the fire started, so the firefighters would come out, but the fire department refused.
That makes sense, because allowing people to pay the $75 AFTER the fire has already started would mean no one would pay unless they actually had a fire. That just isn’t economically feasible for the continued operation of any fire department. It’s akin to allowing people to pay life insurance premiums after the insured person is already dead.
In the case of subscription fire services, the only way this model works is when the cost of the department is spread across a large number of people. You each pay a small fee so that the large cost of a fire department is spread across many people, making it cheaper. Allowing people to not pay until they have a fire is a pay for service model.
Pay Per Service
Firefighting used to be a private for-profit industry. In the 1800’s, the early days of urbanization, in cities like New York and Baltimore, there were private companies who were in charge of putting out fires. The way it functioned was the first company at the scene got money from the insurance company to put out the fire. So, they had an incentive to get there fast. They also had an incentive to sabotage competition. They also often ended up getting into fist fights over territory and many times buildings would burn down while firefighters were busy punching each other in front of it.
Firefighters were hired, not for their prowess in putting out fires, but for their ability to brawl. One tactic that used to be employed was the “plug guard.” These were people hired to race to the scene of a fire, place a barrel over the fire plug, and sit on it, thereby securing the water source for his employer’s exclusive use.
Rivalry among the volunteers was the cause for the establishment of the country’s first paid fire department in Cincinnati in 1853. In 1851, two of the city’s volunteer fire companies crossed paths on the way to a fire, and before the fight was over, ten companies were involved. Help was sent from Covington, Kentucky, across the river-not help to put out the fire, but to assist one of the companies in the fist fight. The building burned to the ground.
The problem here is that fire departments get few fires. The department that I work for responds to less than 300 fires a year, yet has a $20 million budget. Except for large commercial buildings, the fees required to make this profitable would be more than the value of the building. A homeowner would probably refuse to pay a $60,000 fee for a $200,000 house that’s on fire, because now that fee is on top of the $70,000 in damage caused by the fire and the efforts to extinguish it. What if the fire spreads to more than one house? Does each homeowner have to agree to pay before the fire department can act? Or only one? If only one, do they all have to pay a share of the bill, or does the homeowner who made the decision pay the costs of putting out all of the houses? What if someone notices that you house is on fire while you are away at work? Who pays in that case: the person who called, or the homeowner?
For those reasons, pay for service just doesn’t work.
Libertarianism
These methods are both a variation of the libertarian mindset, which just can’t work. Why won’t it work? The Libertarian philosophy will never work because people always want the power to make others give them what they want, but never want to pay for it. Everyone has their issue: the homeless, healthcare, Fire service, whatever.
There are only two ways to get people to do things for you: voluntarily, or involuntarily. Do you think that people should interact voluntarily? If so, then you must allow people to set the standard by which they will provide that care.
If the doctor says that he will only provide care for money, and the patient has no money, then there are only four options:
A. You pay the bill on the other person’s behalf (voluntary donation)
B. You force the provider to provide the service/product for free (forced compliance- slavery)
C. You allow the provider to turn the non-paying person away (voluntary noncooperation)
D. You force others to pay the bill (forced donation- legalized theft)
Libertarians believe that the only fair and proper answer is A or C.
Socialists believe that the only proper answer is B or D.
For those who believe that we have a responsibility to feed/clothe/care for people who cannot pay, just how do you think that the people providing the service will provide it?
How will the hospital pay its staff? How will the fire trucks get fuel? How will restaurants get food for the homeless? How much of your own money have you given to the cause? Do you allow a homeless man to live in your spare bedroom?
If you are not willing to use your own money and resources to provide that service or product, then why do you get to compel me to use mine? Giving away other people’s money and possessions is not charity.
The only way that fire service (or police, military, and courts) makes ethical and moral sense is for the cost to be shared across the entire community, whether through subscription fees or taxes. If it’s through subscription fees, then the fire department has the option of not responding to your property, just as was done in South Fulton. If through taxes, then the people have a right and a duty to make sure their money is being property spent and safeguarded.
I am not opposed to property taxes, but they should be done in such a way that everyone pays the same amount and receives the same service, no exceptions. Ad valorem taxes based upon a speculative value, and having exemptions, special favors, and carve outs is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. We all know Paul will love this deal, but doesn’t Peter get a say?
13 Comments
J J · October 20, 2026 at 8:19 am
The taxable value of my Texas home is about double what the average home like it is selling for in the area. With zero improvements over the last decade the taxable value has risen every year.
And there is a constant demand for increased property taxes so schools can “improve” by installing artificial turf on their sports fields and building new football stadiums.
NTX_Possum · October 20, 2026 at 8:58 am
Local fire department here is associated with the city and funded by property and sales tax. Most people have no issue with the department, they do a great job and are well funded.
But people complain about taxes without actually understand the funding and details. The city is crystal transparent when it comes to budget and finances. With an elementary understanding of accounting, you can track every penny they bring in and spend.
(The city isn’t the issue on most taxes. 66% of the property tax goes to the local school district which is a partial failure since the feds mandate education of illegals consisting of 40% of the student population. Plus a chunk of money gets sent to “poorer” districts at the border. )
Our current modern fire department beats the experience of growing up on the farm, when we and our neighbors were the first responders. Nothing like putting out a grass fire with a tank of water with Roundup mixed in. Double kill!
Silex · October 20, 2026 at 10:15 am
It’s not the fire that burned down most of main street in the town where I grew up that makes me think of how messy a subscription or service fee system could get, it’s all the little, random grass fires along the side of the road near where no one lived.
The subscription fee model falls apart there because no one is paying for the side of the road or the woods and the paid services model actively disincentivizes anyone from calling those in as long as they don’t think it’ll make it to where they live.
Heck, what even is the value of dry grass and woods no one owns? There’s no way to properly measure the cost of that service call and no one to bill for it if the person who calls it in doesn’t stick around or multiple people call it in, but from different locations – who to bill for that, or do they all get billed to maximize the payoff?
Unless there’s a base fee for the service call, but how high would it need to be to justify the use of a truck and the manpower to go there? During times of year when structure fires are less frequent would the cost of responding to a few meters of burning grass and some trees go up, would more guys be sent to increase the billable amount to make up for how slow it’s been?
Or, to go back to main street, which buildings to prioritize first? The ones easiest to save or the ones that will take the most effort and therefore cost more? Is the cost based on the amount of work or how little damage is done to the structure? More work means that a slower response time is optimal, less damage to the structure means that less serious fires would be top priority when choosing between two possible jobs, or that the more expensive properties would be the best fires to go to. I’d hate to have to call in for the abandoned house next to call for the abandoned building place next to my house catching fire, because the department could let it burn and as long as no damage was done to my house I’d have to pay through the nose thanks to the estimated $0.00 loss to my own place when maybe the fire wouldn’t have reached my house at all. But what if it had?
Taxes answer all of those questions. Yes, tax money is often squandered, misused, or mysteriously vanished into random projects, but is the problem there the idea of taxes, or the humans who get their hands on the money?
It always feels like the problem with libertarian solutions to problems, like fire response, where taxes are the answer, is lack of imagination. Which is wild because libertarians can come up with all sorts of fantastical situations (as a kid I got most of my ideals from all of the libertarian fiction I read so I know that those people can come up with the most deep and creative ideas, whole worlds that still are responsible for so much of how I see the world), yet, at the same time, they can never see the points where their ideas might break down or fail, or simply not be applicable and it’s that failure to see holes or look into them and try to explore ways around them that means, as much as the philosophy fascinates me, impacts the way I view the world, I cannot call myself a libertarian because the ideals of the philosophy in its purest form are simply too lofty for humans to accomplish in this world.
Because, seriously, if people are the problem with your philosophy, then it has the same fundamental issues as communism, something that surely pisses off both libertarians and socialists.
Divemedic · October 20, 2026 at 10:18 am
I fully agree.
NTX_Possum · October 20, 2026 at 12:58 pm
Libertarians are just the flip side of socialists. Both are flavors of Utopians and willfully ignorant of human behavior.
Taxes are the solution to most public services, but the taxed need to keep a firm rein on the authorities. And there’s always the corruption and freeloader issues that need to be addressed.
Anonymous · October 20, 2026 at 9:07 am
Cool, do it, I’ll never pay taxes again.
Divemedic · October 20, 2026 at 9:19 am
My point exactly. Some things need to be taxes. There is an equitable way to do it, but ad valorem taxes aren’t it.
Steady Steve · October 20, 2026 at 11:54 am
On this question, and all others regarding taxes and voting in general; if you do not pay into the system (section8, welfare, SNAP, etc) you may not vote. And the fee for service model only works if home owners would have to buy an insurance policy from the fire department. So either way you have to pay for a fire department to be on standby. And that doesn’t even cover the question of paramedic service.
Divemedic · October 20, 2026 at 12:01 pm
I view it differently. The fire department, like civil defense, is no different than the military when it comes to it. It’s an organization that is there to defend the community. That means everyone is defended, and everyone shares the cost. It can be funded in various ways. It doesn’t need to be a direct tax. It can be a tax that is billed to insurance policies, just as there are “communications taxes” levied on cell phone plans.
If you don’t have insurance, you haven’t paid into the system. That means if you should have an emergency requiring emergency response, you will get a bill. If you can’t pay, your property then is subject to levy, just as it would be if you dodged any other bill.
I would even be OK with different levels of taxation, not on the value of the house, but on its size. Say homes up to 1000 square feet pay one rate, 1000-4000 another, and homes over that pay the equivalent commercial rate. Commercial rates are set according to industry and size of the building. A 100,000 square foot factory using hazardous materials would pay one rate, 1 200,000 square foot resort hotel another rate, and a 20,000 square foot candy store would pay yet another. Why? Each of those different buildings has a different chance of needing a response, and a different level of response.
Fido · October 20, 2026 at 3:02 pm
“the only way this model works is when the cost of the department is spread across a large number of people”
This is called insurance, when it’s voluntary, socialism or communism, when it’s not. It does *NOT* make it cheaper. It merely distributes the cost, and by removing competition, as well as consent, it makes the cost *more* expensive.
In my case, I know the actual cost, because I have invested in the resources to fight large fires without outside assistance. The largest cost is actually maintenance, pehaps due to the age of my apparatus.
“Firefighting used to be a private for-profit industry … The way it functioned was the first company at the scene got money from the insurance company to put out the fire … they … had an incentive to sabotage competition”
That was in “insurance” problem, and much of that *still* occurs. Current models incentivise firefighters to *start* fires. There are *no* technical solutions to human corruption. With enough of it, civilization itself become impossible. It is the citizen’s responsibility to stop corruption when they have the numbers to do so, or to remove their support for corruption when they do not.
I do see where the socialist model might work better in large cities (than it does elsewhere), since a degree of collectivism already exists by virtue of proximity, and dissent has the option to vote with their feet.
“The department that I work for responds to less than 300 fires a year, yet has a $20 million budget. Except for large commercial buildings, the fees required to make this profitable would be more than the value of the building.”
And if it’s budget where $20 billion? You *cannot* have what you cannot afford, no matter the percieved “need”. Deficit spending, and insurance do not solve this problem, they only kick the can down the road by making the problem worse later… doubling down.
“For those reasons, pay for service just doesn’t work.”
Even if it can be mathematically proven that preserving freedom is not economically possible, free men will see this as an argument against economics. Fortunately, I know of no such proof, as I’m willing to replace “economics” in that statement with “civilization” or “life itself”. “Live free or die”
“The Libertarian philosophy will never work because people always want the power to make others give them what they want, but never want to pay for it.”
??? If you want the power to make others (fill in the blank), you’re not libertarian. This statement effectively argues that there *are* no libertarians, as it is incompatible with human nature.
I don’t know that “libertarianism” can function, I lean toward your conclusion there, however: I HAVE NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER INITIATIING VIOLENCE TO FORCE ANYONE TO GIVE ME WHAT I WANT. Never have, yet you have accused me of *always* doing so, as a subset of being human.
“For those who believe that we have a responsibility to feed/clothe/care for people who cannot pay, just how do you think that the people providing the service will provide it?”
Those of us who hold that believe must find a way to pay for it that does not *force* payment from those of us who do not, otherwise it’s *not* voluntary. If we cannot find such a way, we must accept defeat until we do.
If you are willing to compromise another’s “free will”, THIS is what *everything* boils down to, this is what I call evil.
If people are not willing to get the job done themselves… charity, volunteering, etc, the the job does not need to be done. If you need conscription, then you should not be at war.
If the only way a service works is by forcing payment from those who are unwilling to pay, then the service does not work.
If an aboriginal walks off into the wilderness and supports himself there, what part of his labor is the state due? What is his “fair share” of the fire department bill? Or of the bill to subsidize homelessness? How am I any differnt?
Divemedic · October 20, 2026 at 3:19 pm
I promise you, you don’t have the ability to fight a large fire, not before it has destroyed what you are trying to save. Solo firefighting isn’t firefighting.
Firefighters starting fires is almost exclusively a problem with volunteer departments. One of the reasons why volunteers have issues.
Just because it’s something the government does, does not mean that it is socialism. The military, courts, and some other things like roads are supplied by government. That doesn’t mean they are socialism.
So firefighting should be all volunteers? The military? And they should work for free? Who pays for all of the equipment? Fuel? Facilities? Donations only? This is the kind of thing where I break with the libertarians. There is no possible way to have the things a society needs and still have everything be completely voluntary. I challenge you to find one single society that can or has functioned under those terms.
Fido · October 20, 2026 at 4:32 pm
I promise you, I have *far* more means to fight a large fire on my property, than local services are willing to provide on my property. This is not speculation. It has been empirically measured. I successfully fight fires. A bit of research will show many other examples of people who have successfully defended their own homes, after the fire department had abandonded it.
When a service is performed by a monopoly, and the cost is distributed even to people who do not want the service, with the threat of violence for non compliance, that absolutely *is* socialism. When it’s not a monopoly, that’s fascism… also known as corporatism.
Without taxation… indeed without government, people will still defend themselves. They will still build roads. Again, not speculation, history.
“So firefighting should be all volunteers? The military?”
I’m saying the labor to do these things, should not be slave labor. I’m saying payment for them must be voluntary. Sales tax can work, as you are not forced to use their money. Today it’s largely funded through inflation, again a tax on money.
“There is no possible way to have the things a society needs and still have everything be completely voluntary. I challenge you to find one single society that can or has functioned under those terms”
Who decides what a society needs? Free men make their own decisions. Functional societies tend to be smaller, and have little cultural diversity. When there is consensus, when *everyone* consents, because of their shared values, they function.
Until recently this was a description of functioning, essentially socialist, states in scandinavia. In larger “more diverse” states like Russia, more totalitarian methods have traditionally been needed to preserve “order” which passes as civilization, yet even Russia has more shared values among it’s population than much of the west now has.
Your culture defines what is “acceptable behavior”. Failure to accept, is called violence. “Cultural diversity” is another name for war. You can have diverse cultures, but not in one place. Each most have a cleary defined territory whose boundaries are accepted by the others.
Jester · October 20, 2026 at 8:57 pm
I speak coming from the small l Libertarian mindset and perhaps I’m not really Libertarian, just anti Retardagain because as you have observed many times here DM, Just because the Retardagains are not the Demonrats, it does not make them your friend. I think a lot of the folks are just tired of being lied to by the Retardagains and seeing them enriched by grift. I don’t personally have so much an issue with taxes, they become theft when the money gets wasted and it’s wasted in a lot of ways. There are also promised and/or needed .gov services that make society actually function for things like commerence, military and yeah good portions of the .gov sector that everyone really gets pissed off about when they are not available.
I see these various programs which take money away or are pet programs much like the same people that just camp out in the left lane on the interestate. Every single retard doing that has their reason to justify it, Hey I’m doing the speed limit! Hey they don’t need to go that fast! Hey everyone else behind me can wait while I pass someone while doing .5 mph faster than the right lane! What? There’s a rule about getting the hell over? Same shit with all the specialty things we send our money to.
I agree subscription services are a nonsequetor, I agree that you can privately pay for additional services, and indeed in many areas, say fire prone you can already to that. I also agree you can do things at least if you don’t have shitty neighbors in the woods to reduce the risk of fire. Guess who can’t do that? People in urban areas. People in apartments. Duplexes. Housing rows. I mean what do you want to do? Some asshole that did not pay the subscription service ends up with a fire emergency that they won’t respond to till it does now hit your place? I fully agree that there’s some limited forms of taxes that are needed to preserve and maintain a Republic. Just make everyone have skin in the game, perhaps excluding the truely poverty poor and those that are legitimately unable to work in some capacity. Like talking the very bottom 5% of the population. And Yes I still expect the poverty poor to be working, perhaps find the line where it costs more money to process their taxes than you would recoup.
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