Boston Fighting Fire with Money

Boston can boast about yet another important achievement: spending the most money per capita on firefighting and emergency medical services. We spend $452 per resident annually, far more than second-place San Francisco's $316 per resident. Unions are being blamed in part for the expense of firefighting in the city, as are outdated divisions that track unnecessary equipment. Whatever the cause, we can't argue that the high expenditures have prevented disaster: we've lost El Pelon, seen fire trucks crash (likely due to equipment failure), and paid disability out the nose (including to bodybuilders). The BFD even lost two of their own in a terrible fire made even more awful by autopsy results indicating drug use. Basically, the BFD is a Big Fucking Disaster—and more money isn't the thing that will fix it.