P000310
Thursday, January 31, 2002 4:10 PM
Comments from the husband of a WTC victim
Attachment 1:
January 29, 2002
Mr. Kenneth Feinberg
Special Master, Victim’s Compensation Fund
Department of Justice
Mr. Feinberg:
Since we don’t have the opportunity to talk face-to-face, let introduce myself so you can have a little better idea of where I’m coming from.
My wife, , was killed in the World Trade Center attack. We were married for 12 years, together for 13; I am now 47 years old. I own a small business I run from my apartment. I am also the of our neighborhood association here in ; my wife was the . Here is a picture of us.
I’m a registered Republican (a minority in my neighborhood!) and strongly support the concepts of less government and the individual standing on their own two feet. You could call me old fashioned because I also don’t believe in suing to earn money, but to right a wrong. It is for this reason that I write you to outline some problems I have with the Interim Regulations you have published regarding the Victim’s Compensation Fund.
I have read the statute and have contacted Congressman Nadler and Senators Clinton and Schumer in an effort to correct the issue of subtraction of insurance payments.
As for regulatory issues, the first thing I noticed when talking to the DOJ attorney at the Family Center in Manhattan was that we must "buy a pig-in-a-poke." In other words, we must commit to the program before knowing what we would get.
I believe it is within your scope to have set up a "pre-registration" process to allow potential applicants the opportunity of knowing how much, they will get prior to the irreversible commitment. This is especially important as commitment to the program removes the possibility of judicial review.
I have read the letter from The Families of September 11th and agree with their positions. They have dealt with many more specifics than I could have recognized, not being an attorney, so I won’t go over those specifics as they have said them better than I can.
Where I think you and your team has gone wrong is not following through on either the intent or spirit of Congress. In your attitude, you have substituted confrontation for compassion; where Congress’ intent was to replicate the rewards of a wrongful death lawsuit, you have set forth on what seems to be how much money you can save the budget. Let me be specific about this.
One may be tempted to equate the disaster of September 11th with any situation where a loved one is killed, but it is not the same.
Using an example of your wife being killed by a drunk driver who then lives: you bury your wife’s body, perhaps file a lawsuit, and then proceed to go through a process of grieving where the situation gets ever farther behind you. Your friends don’t bring up the situation in conversation and you are allowed to leave it behind.
This is not the case with us. Every day we are not only reminded of the disaster by newspaper articles and television news broadcasts, but we see the real life absence of the Twin Towers. We must learn to get on with our lives with a constant reminder of the disaster. We are not allowed to forget.
Furthermore, the Government bears direct responsibility for the attack; not this administration, but the previous occupant of the White House. (I think President Bush is doing a wonderful job; you can see my comments of the President’s State of the Union address in an article in The New York Times of . Populist opinion must not drive foreign policy decisions and if President Clinton had been more interested in foreign affairs than where he stored his cigars, and if he hadn’t made those foreign affairs decisions until after looking at the daily opinion polls, I don’t think I would be writing this letter or would there be a need for a Special Master.
But be that as it may, the compassion of Congress matched that of the American people. When Congress passed the bill, they were looking at 6,000+ people estimated as being killed. Now that number is below 3,000. That alone reflects a huge drop in the cost to the Government. Congress holds the power of the purse and committed the United States Government to help twice as many people as you now actually have to help; the President agreed and signed the bill.
So why is it that you and your team appear to be taking it upon yourselves to save the money the decision makers agreed to spend? Why are you not replicating what happened in, let’s say, the Lockerbie crash lawsuit awards? Why have you adopted a confrontation posture?
The intent of Congress was to replicate the results of a wrongful death lawsuit in civilian court. Current private sector numbers should be used for private sector workers and government figures for government workers.
The spirit of Congress was to help the victims’ families because they had to preserve the nation’s two largest airlines and in doing so, remove our right to redress the wrong. Your attitude should be to do everything possible to follow through in that spirit, not use the very minimum figures you can. We should not have to be fighting our own government.
Some people will never emotionally recover from this disaster, others will. But our ability to earn money, to support our families, to continue living in the lifestyle that we lived previously has been forever changed through no fault of our own, but through the fault of the United States Government.
I urge you to sit down, perhaps in your place of worship, and reexamine how you want to proceed. I urge you to do what is right, not what is expedient. I think that is what President Bush would want you to do; I think that is what he would do in your shoes.
Thank you for your attention
Regards,
Individual Comment
New York, NY