On one hand I like the idea that anyone, regardless of how well liked or their ability to pay for it, gets rescued if it is humanly possible to do it.

To some extent commercial and military rescue is dependent on publicly financed rescue activity to develop new techniques and maintain their skills. Public rescue organizations, going back to early firefighters and storm-shore lifeboat services, have lead the way in developing new methods and maintaining standards.

The operators in combat search and rescue organizations, historically, might see one or two actual combat rescues in their entire career. Not enough to keep their skills honed. Training exercises are good but they are not as good as real experience in real situations with lives on the line and a situation that doesn't stick to a script. While civilian rescues cost time, money and, wear and tear on equipment they pay off in real-world experience and expanded capability.

In this light I'm tempted to call for free rescue of everyone and to hell with the cost.

On the other hand this is essentially socialization of risk and rescue. We have seen the rise of well-off danger-junky adventure chasers. Well-heeled people who go out of their way to do outrageously dangerous, sometimes stupid, stunts just for the notoriety and thrill. These people take advantage of our urge to go out and rescue people to pull their nuts out of the fire if their stunt goes wrong. Sometimes to the point of using rescue services for cheap transportation. Half way up the mountain they decide they no longer want to be out in the sticks. So they get on their cell-phone and claim they are in an emergency. Using expensive rescue services as a personal taxi. With the taxpayer picking up the check.

From this perspective if you get yourself in trouble you pay for the rescue. People getting themselves into dangerous situations need to have the money on hand or purchase an insurance policy that will cover the costs.

In the end I think there has to be some sort of mix of the two. To the extent that the activity that gets you into trouble is normal and considered reasonable the public goes out of their way to go out and get you. To the extent your being stupid and failing to take reasonable precautions in when and where you go and what gear you carry your on your own to rescue yourself or to provide financing for your rescue.

There might be some consideration of the relative wealth of the individuals and their families. If Bill Gates gets himself into a bind I don't think it is unreasonable for him to be required to chip in on the cost of his rescue.

To the extent Fossett was undertaking an unreasonable activity and was unreasonably unprepared and to the extent he, or his family, is wealthy then it isn't unreasonable to think they should pay some proportion of the costs.

I have no way of knowing how reasonable or unreasonable Fossett's activity and preparations may have been. I don't know how well off he or his family is. If or how much the family should be asked to pay isn't something I could decide.

Actually, Ben ,I think politics could be a part of it. Literally.

I wonder if the Governor has a competitor who might have been about to make hay about this SAR call, which was very much out of the ordinary.

The true percentage of the income of the top 1% is hard to estimate, but it's probably closer to 10%.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6863

1. She can afford it, so why didn't she OFFER to pay for the search?

2. Only $700,000 for a big, wide-ranging, month-long search like that? REALLY? Why was it so cheap? $23,000 a day doesn't seem like it would cover all the expenses incurred.

Sue

No, but you also have to take into account how much they already pay. In 2005 (latest year I found numbers for), the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 39% of the personal income taxes that year.



Bill it at overtime rates. Same thing goes for exceptionally risky activities (ie mountain climbing in winter) w/o proper planning and equipment including some form of locator beacon.



Required? See above. Should the organizations involved have a very good year on fund raising? Yes. With his money I'd ask them what they needed.

Lets face it the stupid rich, pun intended, can have their cake and eat it too. I mean really, why bother getting a bill for roughly 700,000 dollars when they could just as easily "donate" a cool million they can spare, then turn around and take it as a tax write off. SAR gets funding, wealthy gets a tax break via 1 million dollars loss of gross taxable income.

-Bill Liptak
Not bitter or hating the rich, just trying to think like 'em......maybe some of their money will rub off

Hadn't thought of the tax write off. That gets him back down to the 700k neighborhood. While there should be consequences for stupidity and criminal charges for calling for SAR w/o an actual emergency, it's better than the state setting a precedence when it may be a case of bad luck.

[Quote/]No, but you also have to take into account how much they already pay. In 2005 (latest year I found numbers for), the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 39% of the personal income taxes that year. [Quote/]

No need to hash out the fairness of the tax codes here but I think two things need to be said:

1) Comparing income taxes alone between income groups doesn't fairly represent the relative burdens. The tax code grants many exemptions and ways of offsetting income into less taxable categories. As the incomes increase and the numbers become more impressive it becomes increasingly profitable to employ tax specialists to shield income.

A game played by a roommate years ago was that he had a relatively low official income but a lot of perquisites. These then were listed as expenses but low balled to keep the dollar amount of benefits down. Housing, car, boat and use of an airplane were all done this way. He lived like a king slumming it and paid less total tax than I did working a dollar over minimum wage and paying payroll taxes. The difference made possible by tax laws that favor the rich, while allowing them to claim 'they pay more' and his families accountant. He would laugh and joke about how well he lived off 'nothing' and owned nothing.

2) People needing rescue from wilderness areas and far offshore tend to be from the higher end of the income curve. People working minimum wage jobs don't generally tend to climb distant mountains, camp in the deep wilderness or go very far offshore. Their recreation tends to be more urban.