[Racer1]

The bottom line is that no one should have received money from the government from this. Their own life insurance, if any, should have taken care of it. As an example, if my or anyones spouse or relative suddenly gets killed in an accident or murder or whatever, isn't it equally tragic? This was a stupid idea, now everyone wants the government to pay and rightfully so.

[JennysCool]

We did a lot of things in the wake of 9/11 that seem goofy and extreme in retrospect, including paying the survivors huge sums of money. I think it was part of that national mindset of the time to do anything in our power to make things somehow "right" again.

To further illustrate how weird things were, recall that the Democrats were patriotic. For a few days, anyway.

[WHBates]

The bottom line is that no one should have received money from the government from this. Their own life insurance, if any, should have taken care of it. As an example, if my or anyones spouse or relative suddenly gets killed in an accident or murder or whatever, isn't it equally tragic? This was a stupid idea, now everyone wants the government to pay and rightfully so.

Don't loose sight of the fact that congress was attempting to keep the airlines from going under from the resulting lawsuits.

I lost my wife less than a month before 9/11 to breast cancer, leaving me with three boy to raise and it never occurred to me that somebody owed us anything. At first, all of the talk of public money going to the families of the victims made me angry but when you reflect on why it was done it makes a certain amount of sense...Sadly it's the result of living in a litigious society.