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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Want more rage? In my community in East Tennessee, I don't have municipal fire service.
There's a private for-profit fire department that "serves" me. I have to pay a yearly subscription fee to them. Granted, it's not expensive, but it's the principle - Why the fuck do I have to pay for something that, everywhere else, is covered by taxes?
Now... I can choose not to pay the subscription fee. And that's fine. If I have a fire or need to be cut out of a car, they'll still respond and still do whatever needs doing. But then they send a bill for $2000 per hour per apparatus that responds to the call, billed from the moment they leave the station to when they pull back in. So if I have a car wreck and the car catches fire, I can expect a bill for $2000/hour for each of a rescue truck, a pump truck, and a tank truck, assuming they don't send two rescue trucks for some reason.
That's $6000/hr, and they scene may be active for two or three hours. That's $12,000 - $18,000 dollars BEFORE we even start talking about our garbage predatory healthcare system. Do I need an airlift to the trauma center? Whoa buddy... That's a minimum of $20,000 before they even start the engine on the damned thing. Plus, the helicopter doesn't take off from accident scene, so I'll need ambulance transport to the aircraft LZ, so that's another $2,000. But it's okay, because the air evac company has a subscription plan too, and as long as I pay them my protection money every year, they won't ruin my life if I have an accident.
I'm SOO FUCKING TIRED of this shithole profit-driven country.
I'm speechless. This feels like Idiocracy but in real life. What the fuck. It's not even like the taxes in US are particularly low.
I mean... everything is like that here. I don't even have municipal trash service. I have to a pay a dude in a converted pickup truck to come collect my trash and take it to the dump once a week, and that works out cheaper than taking it to the dump myself because I have to pay to use the dump. Nope, not included in taxes. It's $25 for up to 500lbs for each visit, but the dude in the pickup truck gets that economy of scale, so paying him $22/mo works out much cheaper for me.
Our roads are covered in potholes, fire service isn't included, the schools are garbage and the teachers have to buy most of their own supplies out of their own money, the homeless problem is out of control, the opioid epidemic is killing people left and right, the power goes out any time the wind blows too hard, our police don't even bother to respond to anything but violent crime anymore and even then they usually just make the problem worse...
...but Randy fucking Boyd can build an unnecessary stadium downtown and get the taxpayers to foot the bill so he doesn't have to pay for it, but he still gets to keep the profits off of it, and Marsha goddamned Blackburn can go on TV and bitch about Hunter Biden snorting cocaine off a porn-filled laptop or something.
I'm just so goddamned tired of it all. My wife and I have agreed that the instant she finishes school, we're expatriating.
That sounds sad honestly. It looks like you can survive somehow until you can leave but I wonder how it will be for people below poverty line. It also makes me wonder how you can elect so many people who don't care about their own community or people. Around here I've heard the excuse that people are uneducated (basic reading and writing) and therefore easily tricked or swayed but I don't think that's true in America.