I had not given any thought to the compensation fund until I read this article. I thought it was just for the relatives of the people on the planes who would otherwise sue the airlines. Now I'm wondering a lot about this fund and all the money that is being raised by charities. There will be a cottage industry around sorting it all out.
My first instinct after the incident was to give blood and contribute to the welfare funds of the fire and police casualties. Then I read that the widows of NYC firefighters get, at a minimum, their husbands' full salaries for life and the kids get a college education so I started looking for those who might not be as well provided for. Now I don't know what to think.
Tucson, Arizona Monday, 1 October 2001
Lots of cleanup under way, tons more ahead
Fund to pay victims' kin stirs confusion
The Associated Press
Workers amid World Trade Center rubble look down into the pit on the south edge. It may take a year to clear the 1.2 million tons of debris.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
The compensation fund created by Congress 10 days ago, which could pay the families of victims in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks more than $1 million each, has begun to generate both anger and confusion about its ultimate fairness and effectiveness.
Senior budget analysts for House Democrats say that the fund, established as part of the legislative package to rescue the airline industry, could cost taxpayers as much as $15 billion to compensate the direct victims of the attacks - at least 6,000 killed or missing and another 8,700 injured.
But already, even as the Justice Department works to put the fund in place, some victims of past terrorism - from the Oklahoma City bombing to the destruction of two American embassies in Africa - are upset that they are excluded.
Charities and relief agencies, which have raised more than $675 million so far, are concerned that the federal fund may exacerbate a lopsided flow of aid by serving only direct victims, whose families already are the main recipients of private charity, while excluding other affected families who have suffered mental trauma and have lost homes, jobs or businesses.
Legal scholars have raised questions about the fund's evenhandedness and accountability. They cite, in particular, the extraordinary power of the fund's "special master," the person to be appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft to make the fund's awards.
The fund, which has an undetermined price tag, was adopted as part of legislation to save the airline industry from bankruptcy after the hijackings. Designed to shield the industry from litigation, it is open to the families of anyone who suffered death or physical harm in the hijackings or the attacks.
Those who apply for relief waive their right to sue for damages sustained in the attacks in any federal or state court. But the applicants are promised a decision within 120 days, far less time than a lawsuit would take. They are also excused from having to prove who is to blame for their losses, as they would be required to do in court.
The amounts paid out by the fund must be reduced by the amount any family has received from its own private insurance, death benefits or government assistance.
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