-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.strike-the-root.com/bottoms1.html
}}}>Begin
Compensation to Attack Victims Is Corporate Welfare
by John Bottoms
As part of their never-ending struggle to put as many Americans as
possible on the dole, our lawmakers have bestowed the coveted
"victim" status upon a new group: the families of the 911 attacks.
Under the new "Victim Compensation Fund," the average surviving
family will receive $1.6 million, though they are currently
negotiating for an even bigger payoff.
But why the special status for these people when other crime victims
are not compensated by the government? If there is any justice in
these payments, negligence must be involved. Perhaps the New York
Port Authority, which runs the World Trade Center was at fault for
not providing a safe working environment. But it's ludicrous to claim
the buildings should have been designed to withstand such an attack.
The fact that they stood as long as they did, allowing most of their
inhabitants time to get out, shows good design practice. Were the
airlines negligent in allowing hijackers to use their planes as
bombs? Clearly there's no precedent here, for hit-and-run victims of
hijacked cars don't sue the car's owner. No jury would award for the
plaintiff in such cases.
The government's motives here are clarified by the fact that, in
accepting the money, the families agree not to sue the airlines. And
yes, the money is being allocated as part of the new airline bailout
package. The families get lots of money; the government gets to look
caring; the airlines get their corporate welfare; and the taxpayers,
many of whom have generously contributed to charities to help these
same people, get to foot the bill for it all. Angry citizens dare not
speak out for fear of looking like mean-spirited grinches. Probably
some victim families will refuse the money and sue on their own in
the hopes of getting a bigger settlement from the airlines, but their
cases will be weakened by Washington's "preemptive strike," for their
injured victim status will appear more like simple greed.
To top it off, life insurance premiums are deducted from the
government payments, but other charity payments are not. As usual,
the socialists in Washington are punishing the families who planned
against unforeseen calamity, and rewarding those who did not, for the
missed opportunities represented by those insurance premiums can
never be replaced. The message is that government handouts and
charity ("a thousand points of light") are good, but private
insurance is passe.
Not to be outdone, the survivors of the 1995 OKC terror attack are
demanding equal justice. We may be seeing the creation of an entire
new class of federally-sponsored "victims," allowing Washington to
buy votes from an ignorant and emotional public, while protecting
corporate interests by manufacturing de facto tort reform.
This is a pattern we've seen before, where liberal Democrats, under a
barrage of criticism, break new ground toward bigger government, and
the Republicans consolidate those gains with little protest from
their cowed "conservative" constituents who naively insist "the
Democrats are worse."
January 8, 2002
John Bottoms is a consulting engineer in Phoenix, Arizona.
End<{{{
>From http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/011231/ideas/31feinberg.htm
}}}>Begin
Cover Story 12/31/01
KENNETH FEINBERG
The value of a lost life
BY SAMANTHA LEVINE
Kenneth Feinberg faces a task unlike any in American history–creating
the terms for a multibillion-dollar government payout to victims of
domestic terrorism, then making sure thousands of potential claimants
are all treated fairly. As the special master of the federal
government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, the attorney
will manage one of the nation's most-watched settlement negotiations.
His formula will dictate how much money from the U.S. Treasury will
go to each participating victim's family or severely injured
survivor, factoring in everything from age to economic losses to
pensions. The average payment to the family of a deceased victim will
be an estimated $1.6 million.
Congress created the fund in the days following the terrorist
attacks, and attached it to an airline bailout measure on the urging
of many lawmakers who believed human beings should receive aid as
quickly as corporations. Once Feinberg heard about it, he called his
old friends on Capitol Hill and offered to run the fund, free of
charge. "I was intrigued," says the man with a keen glint in his eye,
a telltale Boston accent, and a penchant for Necco wafers. "I get
great satisfaction out of making peace."
But he could face a war of sharp emotions. Survivors and families
have already faced webs of bureaucracy trying to get financial help
from charities like the Red Cross and the United Way. There may also
be grumbles from other terrorist attack victims, like those of the
1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City. They received only several thousand dollars each from
government sources, says Suzanne Breedlove, who runs the Oklahoma
Crime Victims Compensation Fund. The Oklahoma victims have just as
much right to government largess, says Feinberg, who expects to hand
out up to $6 billion in total. "But I can only take the system [given
to me] and try to work with it."
Optimist.Feinberg's foray into full-time mediation began in 1984,
when U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein chose him to set terms for
a fund serving Vietnam War veterans who suffered the effects of
chemical defoliant Agent Orange. At the first meeting, the chemical
companies said they'd pay a total of $25,000 to settle thousands of
claims. The vets wanted $1.2 billion. Feinberg chose to accentuate
the positive–at least there was an offer. "I said to both sides:
'See! We're making progress.' "
That program gave $270 million to 291,000 people and still stands as
one of the largest settlements ever. Many share Weinstein's praise of
Feinberg as a "compassionate but very firm" mediator. Since the Agent
Orange case, Feinberg has handled a host of high-profile settlements,
including negotiations for the 215,000 people who sued the maker of
the infamous Dalkon Shield contraceptive.
Feinberg's new task could be even more daunting. "There is no way
this program will be able to truly compensate people for their loss,"
he says from his neat-as-a pin office at the Feinberg Group, his
Washington law firm. "No way, no how. I will do the best I can to
bring some measure of financial relief to these people, but any
assumption that somehow I am making them whole or am going to satisfy
them–even I am not that optimistic or foolhardy."
His relevant experience includes brokering family squabbles. His
eldest son, Michael, 24, remembers when at age 16 he wanted his
curfew pushed an hour later to 11:30 p.m. Dinner-table negotiations
ended up where you'd expect: in the middle, at 11 p.m. "He wanted to
make sure we saw why he was making a particular decision," Michael
says.
Feinberg doesn't leave his humanity at home. Although claimants
cannot appeal his award decisions in court, he promises that anyone
who's not satisfied can speak directly with him.
Born: Oct. 23, 1945
Education: B.A., University of Massachusetts, 1967; J.D., New York
University School of Law, 1970
Family: Wife, Diane; three children
Favorite saying: "No good deed goes unpunished."
Safe place: His classical music reading room, stocked with 6,000 CDs
© 2002 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
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--- Ernest Hemingway
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