The Oklahoma City Bombing Families: Where's Our Big Payout?

Nightline is showing families affected by the OK City bombing 10 years ago, upset that 9-11 families (although hardly all) got big government-funded checks for their losses while the OK families did not. Several of the women argued that people going to work every day for Social Security and the IRS and all deserved more compensation than people whose loved ones died in the Pentagon or WTC.

First, any loss in such senseless violence is awful.

Second, I don't see that being a federal employee makes you some grand being above and beyond the hoi polloi you serve. They're employees like any other employee, except we all py their salaries. The notion that certain members of the public are more valuable than others just doesn't sit too well with me. I don't think you're necessarily a hero if you're sitting in a federal office watching the clock waiting for that great federal retirement plan to kick in.

Third, I didn't agree with buying off the 9-11 families either. We should have helped them, yes, but awarding $3 mill here and $15 mill there seemed a bit obscene. Or perhaps I'm still bitter about one fireman's widow from NY who - after saying that when all her benefits were calculated (including free college tuition for her children and various others) - figured she got about $3.2 million and said she was "ripped off". She should have had the $15 million some families got. Her loss indeed was incalculable. But I compare the $3.2 million she got against the $12K soldiers' families get when a soldier is killed in combat and, given that both lives are priceless, I get that uneasy tickle in the back of my mind that asks if the taxpayers paid for someone's "slightly" guilty conscience on allowing 9-11 to happen.

Fourth, when did every life automatically produce some multimillion dollar payday anyway? I assume all taxpayers again were supposed to pay this? The sense of entitlement some feel just eludes me. For example, I feel terrible that these folks lost their family members just as I feel awful when anyone loses a loved one. As much as I could, I'd be happy to help them out. In fact, I believe I gave as much as I could to both 9-11 and OK City fundraising efforts for families. But why must everyone do that, which is what a tax-paid allotment would mean?

Finally, I found myself wondering how many of the fairly bitter sounding families present in that room tonight, saying they deserved a big allotment, feel it's appropriate that in Iraq, when we take civilian lives, we often tender the families anywhere from $50-$300 which is also supposed to cover the expense of burial and so on. Would they say we overpay the Iraqis? I suspect some would. But for themselves, they're sure they deserve a very large check with a lot more zeroes than $50 offers.