Topic: With no taxes, what about firestations and garbage service? - page 10. (Read 11384 times)

without taxes if people wanted something they'd just do it themselves or pay someone to do it- I know people where I live don't want trash all over the place, maybe I'd make a living keeping it clean. Need for taxes is an illusion to keep people in line, people aren't stupid and ignorant enough to let the world go to shit just because 'the man' isn't taking out their trash. A fireman that won't work just because there's no paycheck is no fireman at all, just a walking meat sack of 'want' for the things that paycheck gets him.

hint: natural monopolies such as water, power and gas are generally better run by the government since they're marginally more accountable than a corporation doing it (see: turned out the 6 largest british gas providers were in collusion with eachother to put up gas prices by 30% for the sake of earning more money).

As for fire services and suchlike I'd rather have the government running the fire service as a non-profit than have a company using it to get all the money they can. It's that sorta attitude that leads to a load of firemen standing outside your house going "awfully flammable building this. could go up like a bonfire with just one dropped cigerette butt, know what I'm saying?"

Taxes are a pretty difficult cat to put back in the bag, so it's kind of a moot point.  However, note that the Government could just print their own money and spend it.  In the end, that's pretty much what they are doing, anyhow, with the taxes.  And this would make April much more pleasant.

The logic assumes that the fire service can be provided cheaply and that each house has one owner.  And in rural areas, thats true.  

But in an urban area where buildings are higher and have multiple occupants, it simply won't work.  Even with a monopoly its hard to pay for a decent fire service with the kit to handle fire in a multi-story building.  And in an apartment block, if 1 person out of the 100 or so apartments has paid for the fire service, the other 99 get their fires put out for free as you can't save just one part of one floor of a building.  

So you'd end up with 1 or 2% of people paying for the service.  And since its very expensive, unless they pay millions, even they wouldn't get the service.  You need to make it compulsory for all people in the block just to make the system available to even one person in the block.

don't get short imagining another taxation system based on bitcoin...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.550903

Privative everything.  I want to see 2 IPO's in my lifetime: the USMC and the CIA.

I dunno it's almost like people would pay for the services they desire or something.

Though in Texas I did live in a few places that I could choose my electricity provider. I ended up choosing the windmill power company at one location.

Worked out well because the other company had to burn gasoline when the capacity was maxed out which cost extra money for electricity at those times. And that was when gas was around $5 per gallon. The flat rate was higher than the other for the windmill company but it turned out to save me a lot of money.

Choice...aint it grand?

True. I am not a big fan of government created monopolies.

With private roads they could run several separate systems under the roads to people's houses and charge each company rent for it. Thus allowing competition.

I am actually going to run for commissioner of my local water company just to keep them honest.

Fixed that for you.


 

I see this all the time when mentioning getting rid of the income tax. "Hope your house isn't burning down, there will be no firemen to come help you." or the idea that you would have a huge pile of garbage because your tax paid garbage service would not show up.

Outside of the fact that the income tax pays for the federal government and fire stations, garbage service, etc is paid through property taxes, I still get disturbed by this.

Why do people believe that a fire station can only be run by tax dollars?

I lived in a county once, the population was a few hundred thousand people, that had a private fire department.

When I moved into my house I was mailed a letter with the private fire company's rates. I had the choice of paying $20 per month for full coverage, or there were fees for services. $50 minimum for a service call for small things such as a small kitchen fire or such and a maximum of $2,000 for a full house fire which it said that my homeowners insurance should be able to pay.

I have also had private garbage service at most places I have lived. I now pay $10 per month for garbage pick up. They come out 2 times a week and do a good job. If they did not do a good job I would just call another company.

My electricity is private. My water company is private. My sewage company is private. My current fire company is public. They used to be private but the county wanted to take over all fire services in the county so they snatched them up via eminent domain.

My property taxes are very low. I pay about $1,500 per year on a house valued around $200k.