P000037
Wednesday, January 23, 2002 9:20 PM
January 22, 2002
Dear Mr. Feinberg,
This letter is to convey to you my concerns over the current format of the
Victim Compensation Fund
I lost my husband and my two young daughters lost their father on September
11th while he was at work in the World Trade Center. While I am grateful for
our government's immediate response to this horrific event, upon closer
scrutiny I am troubled by the current rules of the compensation proposal.
Essentially, certain aspects of this proposal cause one to wonder if it was
created to truly compensate victims' families or to protect the airline
industry and the federal government. The conflict between these two very
divergent goals is causing the families of victims considerable anguish in
addition to the enormous grief which has taken up residence in every minute
of our lives. This is due to the appearance that the government is trying
to "buy off" families such as mine without giving fair and equitable
compensation that respects our birthright as Americans to exercise our
lawful prerogative to pursue our tremendous grievance in a court of law.
For example, the fund's compensation offset for life insurance, pensions,
and government benefits (social security) is patently unfair. It is perhaps
the main element in this fund that appears to illustrate how this fund was
created to protect the liability of the airline industry and the government
rather than to genuinely compensate for the murder of innocent people in
this national tragedy. I especially object to the reduction of compensation
for life insurance and pensions. To suggest that families of victims should
be penalized because their lost loved one exercised wise planning and
financial responsibly is profoundly unjust. Also, to offset the compensation
by any survivor's social security benefits is unfair. My husband paid into
the social security system for many years and it is a benefit that I am
counting on for income.
In bold stark terms, the purpose of the fund is to compensate people who are
victims of a tragedy that has its origins in the failure of both private
industry (the airlines and their private security firms) and various
agencies of our federal government to protect us from terrorist treats that
could well have been predicted and avoided. Perhaps our government realized
that, if tried in a court of law, these shortcomings, which ultimately
resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent and law-abiding citizens,
would be revealed.
What you are proposing is that we accept your compensation package in
replacement of the normal lawful method of compensation by filing a civil
suit in a court of law. The current proposal doesn't equitably replace one
form of compensation with another. In reality, this proposal, which is
designed with the interests of the airline industry and government in mind,
proposes to the families of victims an option that denies us the right under
law to reasonable compensation and punishes the heirs of my husband and many
others who made financial and insurance decisions wisely, thoughtfully, and
responsibly to protect their families.
Therefore, I respectfully request that these offset provisions in the
legislation be eliminated, which are inequitable and unfairly penalize some
families and not others.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Individual Comment