Whatever makes one think that the rest of us owes them anything, anyway? Things happen. The airlines didn't drive those planes into the buildings, nor did the pilots, so these families should be taking their claims to Saudi Arabia...the home of the perpetrators.
Why does our government have to bail everything out? This is socialism, folks. The government was not responsible for 9/11, for Katrina, for any of the bailouts that are regularly laid at their feet. We are expecting the government to provide a certain standard of living to all who suffer loss. Then why not for bankruptcies, defaults, repossessed homes, etc.?
The overpayments assocaited with this profligate program are evident in the fact that the families were given the choice of accepting the millions in taxpayer dollars or declining them adn going forward with their "ironclad" lawsuits against the airlines, etc. As I recall, not a single family opted out of the payments which I believe are tax-free. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also seem to remember Hillary pushing through a bill barring the IRS from collecting taxes ont he income earned by their decedents in 2001. Again, my comments about a lack of appreciation don't cover the fire/police/rescue families or those families of the trapped WTC dead, seemingly in the minority, who seem to have some appreciation for what they've gotten as generous gifts from the US taxpayers.
I agree with much of what you are saying, but you can't pretend that there wasn't some negligence on the part of the airlines (et.al.) that lead to the vast majority of the deaths on 9/11. Had they not allowed middle eastern men with box cutters, kept the cockpit door closed, etc., the planes wouldn't have flown into buildings or crashed. What the government was doing in the aftermath is saying, "we don't want the airlines and the economy crippled by suits where a significant chunk of the recovery will go to attorneys -- both Plaintiff and defense." Even as an attorney, I have to say the reasoning there is sound, even if there are problems with how they went about it.