P000216
Monday, January 28, 2002 1:32 AM
My opinion
To whom it may concern,
I saw an article in the paper discussing the compensation for victims
that had this address and thought I would contribute my $.02 worth.
The loss of a loved one is a terrible thing to bear and go through and I
do have sympathy for the people who's lives were affected by this.
With this said, listening to some of them complain because they aren't
going to get any money from the government is absolutely ridiculous.
Why are we paying these people to begin with? What did they do to
deserve it? The answer? They went to work and were killed. The people
on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania and the fire fighters that
went into a burning building may be heroes, but the rest did nothing.
Are we going to give millions to the clerks of liquor and convenience
stores who are killed because they happened to go to work that day?
Would we be giving these people millions of dollars because they were
killed in a car crash on the way to work? What about the people killed
in the Lockerbie flight, the embassy bombings, Oklahoma City, or the
first attack on the World Trade Centers. Are we giving them millions of
dollars? I don't believe we are. Why aren't we giving millions to the
families of service men and women who are killed defending our country?
They at least are truly dying for our country. The others are just
people who went to work and had the (mis)fortune to be killed by a
terrorist attack.
We're giving them millions, giving their kids scholarships, exempting
them from all taxes for 2 years, and allowing them to forgo estate taxes
up to $8 million dollars. If they have an estate worth 8 million
dollars, they sure as hell don't need money from the government or any
fund.
I'm sorry that my opinion may seem callous, but the bottom line is that
all that most of them did was die because they went to work. I can
agree on money for the fire fighters, police and passengers on the PA
flight that may have saved others by trying to retake the plane, but the
others did nothing to deserve anything.
Individual Comment
Fort Collins, Colorado