N001728
Tuesday, January 15, 2002 9:32 PM
Compensation for 9/11 victims
Dear Mr. Zwick,
When I heard of the proposed settlement to the recent terrorist
plane crash victims, I could not believe my ears. My associates and I
travel from Boston to the west coast early in the morning on many a Sunday,
Monday or Tuesday and two of our group actually were on one of those very
flights on 9/9 and 9/10. My son worked in a building now abandoned due to
9/11 crash damage (Two World Financial Center), but was fortunate to be
elsewhere that morning. Except for the state of the economy and the
downturn in the semiconductor industry since last January, I am sure that I
or one or more of my associates would have been on that flight.
Therefore, I have a great empathy for the victims and am angered to
learn that my family would have received no compensation simply because I
took the precaution to provide insurance and retirement savings. Like many
of the victims families, my family would stand to receive millions in
damages in open suits from such a crash but nothing under the government's
formulaic compensation program. Like all too many government programs, this
is another Robin Hood style attempt at redistributing wealth. This should
not be not a country of handouts, rather it is presumably a country of
opportunity and reward. As someone who earned every nickel, but would
therefore "qualify" for no compensation under your plan, I am furious.
Yet again, the bureaucrats are taking from those who work hard, pay
taxes, deny indulgences, and save for their future, while giving to those
who otherwise have made no such provision. I know I will never see a dime
of my social security in spite of paying the maximum FICA every year since I
left high school. I don't think that is fair, but the politics of that
piece of social welfare seem unstoppable and I have made my retirement
provisions to account for that inevitable reality. However it is an insult
to now find that such planning would result in a 9/11 victim's heirs losing
both their companionship and respective future earnings toward that
retirement simply because a jealous bureaucrat decides that the victim's
savings are already "sufficient" to take the place of compensation or those
future earnings. What a person provides for himself does not lessen the
liability for their loss due to negligence of airlines and government
agencies, who are clearly responsible for poor security that allowed such
easy and damaging terrorist strikes.
All prior damage awards and negotiated settlements in other crashes
actually provided awards proportionate to future earnings power--not debited
for the savings to date from such earnings power or proceeds of
self-insurance. There is no precedent for the unfair settlement, except
perhaps in some of the lesser know writings of Marx or Lenin. As a
contributing member of Citizens Against Government Waste and the Republican
Party, I will push hard for the correction of this injustice and the
replacement of any member of government responsible for continuing down this
unjust path.
Regards,
Individual Comment