Congress passes aid package for 9/11 responders

Fox News ^ | Dec 22 2010

[VictoryGal]

WASHINGTON – Congress has passed a $4.2 billion aid package for survivors of the September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and responders who develop illnesses because of breathing dust from the ruins. The House passed the bill on a 206-60 vote Wednesday about two hours after the Senate cleared it. President Barack Obama has said he is eager to sign it. The package provides money to monitor rescue and cleanup workers and treat illnesses related to Ground Zero. It also reopens a victims' compensation fund for another five years to cover wage and other economic losses of sickened workers and nearby residents.

[VictoryGal]

I think this is a reasonable compromise on a bill for the heroes of 9/11.

Frankly, I was surprised at the GOP's opposition to this one. There was also a lot of FRiends who were quite opposed. I looked at the bill and it looked fine to me, especially after the price tag was trimmed. You ask me, I think the GOP really missed the boat on this one, morally, and it was also NOT a smart political move to be against this.

If anyone deserves help, it's the people who risked their lives to save others. Especially in this holy season.

[April Lexington]

Yep. As long as it is now our national policy to print money out of thin air or borrow from the Chinese or both... I guess another $4 Billion or so for folks who knew the risk when they took the public jobs with big pay and incredible benefits deserve another slice of the pie... What about compensating all of the innocent victims as well? Surely they were traumatized, injured or inconvenienced? And just think of all those poor American families who were disturbed or disrupted by the American Civil War. Surely, they too, deserve to be compensated... And all of those poor folks in Hiroshima who were inconvenienced in 1945. Print some more! Just print up a billion or two for every person on the planet so nobody is left out this Holiday Season...

[ducdriver]

What — don’t they have Obamacare? Why would anyone need anything more?

[VictoryGal]

> I guess another $4 Billion or so for folks who knew the risk when they took the public jobs with big pay and incredible benefits deserve another slice of the pie.

April, many of those who got sick were volunteers. Volunteers working tirelessly helping fellow Americans during the darkest days of US History, helping in the aftermath of an attack on US soil! I’m not sure why you’d like to be tightfisted with heroes who gave up their health selflessly. I’d rather help a volunteer fireman who lost a limb or a lung rescuing people and sifting through rubble for remains of loved ones than send a fat tax cut check to Paris Hilton, I don’t care how many jobs she supposedly creates.

[hinckley buzzard]

This slush fund for lawyers has nothing to do with those who "risked their lives to save others." It is for the cleanup crews who couldn't be bothered to wear the masks offered which filtered out harmful particulate matter. In other words, it is a chicken-shit payoff to political legal whores disguised as a sloppy sentimental tribute to the real "first responders," who have already long since received billions for their efforts and sacrifices.

[VictoryGal]

Obamacare is a joke. And a bad one at that.

[April Lexington]

Ok... then send me a check too. I sat on my butt in front of the TV for days worrying about New York. I'm injured because of that experience. I was a volunteer. I send money to union thugs in New York for “da poooo”. I have suffered damage as a result of this event and I want $1 billion too. As for Paris Hilton... who the hell is Paris Hilton and what did she do for America? She hates the place...

[ducdriver]

http://www.juntosociety.com/patriotism/inytg.html

[VictoryGal]

When I posted about this thread, I asked for links for information about this to support things like your allegations there about the bill. I got doodley squat. Maybe you can furnish a link or two to me.

I have buddies back home in NY who are volunteer firemen who know some of these folks who still need help... and some who have died. They’re all great conservatives. I invite you to tell them they supported a “chicken=s**t” bill. And good luck with that.

[April Lexington]

Also, if you feel so badly about these poor, poor innocent volunteers, then please send them a personal check instead of either raiding my wallet through the tax system or burdening me and my children with the debt plus interest. You feel bad. You pay. Leave me and my wealth alone. I gave at the time and that was that.

[April Lexington]

And, frankly, as long as I'm ranting... if it happens again, I shall be one of those Americans who could care less what happens to the home of Chuckie Schooooooooooooma, Hillery Clinton and the rest of those Liberal *ssholes. You elect them and they try to destroy our way of life. Next time... have fun diggin. We ain't coming to help and neither is our money...

[April Lexington]

They’re all great conservatives.

Who now seem to have their hands in the Public Fisc... Funny how that works, eh?

[VictoryGal]

How about you also keep your money that is supposed to go to fire departments. After all, YOU are careful and won’t need one, right? And you can always pay the nice fire dept. if you do run into trouble. Worked great in South Fulton, Tennessee.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP what you said. Exactly correct.

[jessduntno]

Total FEMA money spent on the emergency: $970 million

Estimated amount donated to 9/11 charities: $1.4 billion

Estimated amount of insurance paid worldwide related to 9/11: $40.2 billion

Estimated amount of money needed to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $7.5 billion

Amount of money recently granted by U.S. government to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $4.55 billion

Estimated amount of money raised for funds dedicated to NYPD and FDNY families: $500 million

Percentage of total charity money raised going to FDNY and NYPD families: 25

Average benefit already received by each FDNY and NYPD widow: $1 million

Percentage increase in law-school applications from 2001 to 2002: 17.9

[April Lexington]

Sweetie, I pay taxes every year to support our fire department. They have civil service protection and a union. They don;t seem to miss a beat. But, sure as heck am not going to send them extra money for showing up and doing their job at some big disaster. That's what we pay them for. And, 99% of the time they sit around playing cards and waiting for something to happen. When something happens, it is their JOB to do something and that something may require extra effort. Not Congressional bonuses...

[VictoryGal]

Source please.

[AlmaKing]

Based on that info VictoryGal, they don’t need help and handouts.

Not one more penny from me for forced charity.

[April Lexington]

The whole problem with this thread is that Liberals and Conservatives alike are clueless where these dollars come from. Everyone seems to think Congress just poops out the money and happy peasants get spending money. Nobody seems to grasp the fact that the tax paying base in the USA has long since stopped being able to support public spending. Only 45 cents out of every new dollar spent comes from tax payers. The rest is either borrowed from the Chinese, the Russians or the oil producing countries or... more recently... from the Fed through QE. We are living in a delusional world of funny money where everyone wants more and the idiot government just borrows and pays. IT IS ALL UNSUSTAINABLE yet, here, “good conservatives” have their had out for Obama’s Stash© just like the liberals... National madness...

[AlmaKing]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/19/usat-charity.htm

In the confusion, families are beginning to turn on one another. At meetings of World Trade Center survivor groups, widows of uniformed rescuers find themselves pitted against survivors of accountants and dishwashers.

The survivors of New York City firefighters, police officers and ambulance workers are favored with $250,000 federal payments to each family, full-salary pensions and $353 million in charitable funds earmarked for the fallen national heroes. Those charity payments could average $880,000 per family, according to a New York Times survey. That would put total benefits well above $1 million. By contrast, families of victims who held menial jobs may receive $100,000 or less from charities and employers.

“I know they gave their lives, but that was their choice,” Janine Snyder says of the rescuers who perished. Her husband, Leonard, an insurance executive, died at the World Trade Center. “My husband was just going to work. If he had known this, he wouldn’t have gone in to work.”

It’s hard to blame “civilian” families for being resentful, supporters of the rescuers’ survivors say.

“The frustration is not toward the fire families,” says New York City firefighter Joe Miccio, vice president of the 9-11 Widows’ and Victims’ Families Association. “The frustration is that there’s a lot of money that’s been donated that’s supposed to help families, and it’s not getting to them. There are a lot of horror stories going on. A lot of the civilians don’t have enough to pay their bills.”

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Another reference to us peons as civilians by either fireman or police.