Romney wants FEWER firefighters

This is a good time to remind everyone about Mitt Romney's dynamic plan for fewer firefighters.

"He wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” -- Mitt Romney

http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-rom ... omy-2012-6

Yeah, we don' need no steenkin' firefighters, policemen or teachers...

Homes are more safe from fire than ever before and more paramedic duties have been privatized. My BIL who is a Denver firefighter admits they are overstaffed with not enough to do.

Well there ya go...Fred's BIL says that the fire departments are overstaffed. Was this before or after all the fires broke out? If you only staff for the average day you will get caught shorthanded when you have an above average need.....so what's the answer....tell citizens that the government thinks a certain number of homes/businesses/lives are expendable in the name of cost cutting?

There is a hell of a lot of difference between big city fire departments and wildland firefighters. It is comparing apples and watermelons.

jf1acai wrote: There is a hell of a lot of difference between big city fire departments and wildland firefighters. It is comparing apples and watermelons.

And we need both...along with police and EMS.....

Sure my ox is being gored right now and I would like to see more wildfire firefighters but I like the current mode of federals going to where they are needed. Colorado could buy their own large elite unit but many years they wouldn't be needed. Or only a few weeks a year. Gov Hickenlooper chose to not do this either.

So you are advocating for the federal government to maintain the larger wildfire force...rather like FEMA maintains teams around the nation for both medical and disaster relief? That's a pretty liberal idea.

archer wrote: Well there ya go...Fred's BIL says that the fire departments are overstaffed. Was this before or after all the fires broke out? If you only staff for the average day you will get caught shorthanded when you have an above average need.....so what's the answer....tell citizens that the government thinks a certain number of homes/businesses/lives are expendable in the name of cost cutting?

Should we use this year as a guage of how many firefighters we need in the state? It seems like theres a lot of emotion right now but are more fire fighters really the answer? Are more "sand baggers" the answer for people who insist on living in flood plains? Droughts will happen and trees will burn. Unless we plan on paying for fire fighting chopper stations every 20 miles across the Rockies, we are going to have big fires when we have big droughts.

Those republican congressmen who voted for the immoral Ryan budget are being awfully quite about how it would decimate the federal funding for fighting wildfires.