Senator John Kerry on Useless Federal Fire Act Grants

Matt Mayer / February 01, 2010

In a recent press release touting a federal fire grant, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) noted that because “firefighters put their lives on the line every day,” we face a “moral issue” that required us to use federal funds to buy the Somerville Fire Department equipment.

The reality is that despite billions in grants across the United States, the Fire Act program has not reduced the number of firefighter deaths or fires. As David Muhlhausen pointed out in his seminal data analysis paper on the Fire Act program, “fire grants, including grants that subsidize the salaries of firefighters, had no impact on fire casualties [and] failed to reduce firefighter deaths, firefighter injuries, civilian deaths, or civilian injuries.” More damning, Muhlhausen found that fire departments that did not received federal grants “were just as successful at preventing fire casualties as grant-funded fire departments.” (more…)