dojN001542.xml

dojN001542.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2002-01-12

Saturday, January 12, 2002 2:28 AM
Inadequacy/ injustice of current fund

I am deeply disappointed by the current fund guidelines. My brother, &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp , was murdered in this horrific attack on the WTC on Sept.11. I feel that your current limits are an inadequate underestimation of both the economic and non-economic lossses his family will experience.
First, I feel that reducing the compensation by insurance premiums trivializes the prudent investments these hard-working victims made to provide for their families. Taking this investment from them is victimizing them yet one more time in their deaths. It undermines our society's work ethics of industriousness and responsibility in that it penalizes the victims for choosing to provide for their families with life insurance.
Second, reducing their compensation by Social Security payments once again penalizes the victims for being hard-working, dedicated citizens. My brother had been paying into Social Security since he was a young teenager. The cumulative investments into this system by he and his employers are sizable. To take this investment from him makes a mockery of the system and essentially deprives him of his rightful investment. If the fund were still to implement this policy, it should at least compensate for the entire contributions made by the victims and their employers into Social Security.
Third, it is unfair to choose a three year salary average to determine future projected earnings. This fails to recognize recent promotions and concomitant salary increases. I could understand your using an averaging of salaries when commissions are involved, but for those victims who had a predetermined salary (and bonus), you are once again penalizing them in death for having lived the American ideals of working hard and getting ahead in life. Oh that they had lived to continue to do so! Sadly, though, their potential will never be realized. Please don't rob them of what they had already accomplished by failing to accept their salaries as of September11th as the true reflection of their current earnings potential.
Finally, I am saddened by your failure to attach a greater value to the non-economic losses which the families have suffered. Although we all know that there is no figure which could ever reflect the tremendous losses which have overwhelmed the families of the victims, the current calculations are incredulous. In our democratic society with a judicial system that attaches multimillion dollar settlements for "pain and suffering" scenarios which are far less painful and sorrowful than those of 9/11, the fund has a moral responsibility to exhibit a greater sensitivity to the families' grief than they are currently demonstrating. Although I know that this issue is not intended to be a major one in the way the compensation fund has been set up, it deserves far more value than it is currently receiving. These innocent victims died because they were American. And they died, in part, because their beloved country failed to protect them. We must not camouflage this fund under the guise of a benevolent gesture by our country. Rather, we must be frank in our acceptance that although they were random targets of blind hatred, there was unequivocal negligence by other parties which also played a role in the wrongful deaths of these innocent victims.
Unless the victims' compensation fund takes these issues into account, our family will be unable to accept it. Thank you for your attention to my comments.
Regards,
Individual Comment

2002-01-12