>>>>>>I'm with you. There's no excuse for such a basic service not being covered by tax dollars. No one should have to pay separately for a fire company.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Tamar
>>>>>
>>>>>Well that's it then. Hell's frozen over.
>>>>>
>>>>>I agree.
>>>>
>>>>That's cool! We've found at least one service that we agree is a public responsibility and should be tax-funded. We'll never agree on everything, but I'm pretty sure we could find some other things as well, if we tried.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>I think there are a number of services that should be tax funded, including..
>>>
>>>Police/Fire/EMT should be available to all except the terminally stupid - those that take idiotic risks - you know - extreme sports and such.
>>>
>>>National Defense. No "I'm sorry Mr. Jones - you haven't paid your yearly defense surcharge so you have no air cover".
>>>
>>>Health Care - yeah - Health Care. A REAL health care system - not the BS currently in the pipes. Tax funded. Sick? Go to the doctor or hospital. Done. No insurance BS at all.
>>>
>>>Schools - all the way through 4 year state college.
>>
>>I agree with all of those except the extreme sport. If a taxpayer has an accident while skydiving, they should still get emergency care.
>
>I don't consider skydiving an extreme sport in it's generally practiced form. There are solid safeguards in place that will keep most people (aside from the terminally stupid) reasonably safe.
>
>Parachute jumping from a building or a cliff moves into the terminally stupid realm. Bill the next of kin for the cleanup.

OK, I misunderstood. Definitely agree with charging the recipient (after the fact) but not with billing the next of kin. Do you have control over what your parents do? Unless the next of kin are legally responsible (such as the parents of the MINOR recipient), no.