 The hearts of decent people go out to those who lost a relative on Sept. 11. But that is no reason for Congress to be giving them millions of dollars in tax-free gifts. |
THE FUND created by Congress to aid the families of victims killed or injured in the Sept. 11 attacks, it was reported last week, will pay an average of $1.6 million per family. These awards will be tax-free and are expected to total as much as $6 billion. Congress has also passed a law exempting the Sept. 11 victims from income taxes for 2000 and 200, and directing the Treasury to refund any taxes they already paid. While awards paid by the federal fund will be reduced by any insurance benefits the families receive, those payments too will be tax-free.
In short, those whose loved ones were killed or wounded on Sept. 11 stand to collect a small fortune, courtesy of the US taxpayer. But why should that be?
To be sure, no sum can make up for the loss of a beloved parent, spouse, or child to a cruel act of terrorism. But that was also true for the families of those who were murdered by terrorists on Pan Am 103 — or at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania — or in the Oklahoma City federal building — or in the first World Trade Center attack. Yet those families were not compensated with million-dollar government awards or exempted from two years' worth of taxes. Why should the Sept. 11 families be treated differently?
The hearts of decent people everywhere go out to those who lost a relative on Sept. 11, and millions of them have made gifts to ease the blow. More than $1.5 billion in cash has already been donated, as well as goods and services worth hundreds of millions more. That is the way to help the victims and their families: through the compassionate generosity of individuals.
But Congress has no business appropriating charity. Both because nothing in the Constitution authorizes it, and because it cannot be done with fairness. It may be admirable that so many senators and representatives wanted to help. They should have done what so many others did, and reached into their own pockets.
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SPEAKING OF congressional pockets, those same senators and representatives have just helped themselves to their fourth pay raise in five years, boosting their salary by $4,900 to $150,000.
Naturally they didn't do it openly. They relied on a Rube Goldberg scheme enacted in 1989, whereby their salary automatically grows each year — unless they vote to block the increase. Senator Russell Feingold tried without success to get such a vote on Dec. 7.
Legislators love to complain that there is no seemly way to give themselves a raise — that no matter how they do it, they look bad. It isn't true. What voters find obnoxious isn't an occasional raise, it's greed and underhandedness. There is a right way to for members of Congress to hike their salary: Vote the increase openly but have it take effect only after the next election.
As it happens, this is more than just a good idea. It is a constitutional requirement. The 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, forbids Congress from raising its pay in mid-term. Which means that the latest congressional raise — like the five others since 1992 — is unconstitutional.
Unfortunately, there is no one to enforce the constitutional prohibition. Senators and representatives refuse to obey the amendment's clear language, and the Supreme Court has refused to hear a suit demanding that they do so. That means it's up to voters to force Congress to heed the Constitution. But when was the last time voters forced Congress to do anything?
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SOME OF my Boston media colleagues are in a froth over the expected sale of the Red Sox to a nine-headed ownership team that includes The New York Times Co. — which already owns The Boston Globe. This, they say, raises the specter of the Dreaded Double Standard: the prospect that the Globe will no longer be able to cover Sox-related news without fear or favor.
"Covering the bases once you own them," ran the double headline over the Globe's media column on Saturday. "When news outlets buy a team, can reporting be fair?" A day earlier, columnist Brian McGrory hilariously speculated on the coming changes at Fenway Park: "Rather than distribute All-Star ballots at the ball yard, we'll hand out Globe subscription cards. Rather than list American and National League tallies on the Green Monster scoreboard, we'll flash The New York Times stock price."
Over at the Boston Phoenix, senior writer Dan Kennedy called the sale "a deal that has reeked from day one." He quoted one observer's forecast that "with the Globe holding an ownership stake" in the Red Sox, it would end up "trading on [its] credibility in a way that posed potential ethical risks."
I'm not a sports fan, so perhaps there is a subtlety here that eludes me. But surely in no section of a newspaper are readers less likely to find objectivity and dispassion than the sports pages. Sports stories invariably proceed from the premise that "good" news means news that is good for the home team.
No matter who owns the Red Sox, Boston's sports reporters will openly mourn their losses and cheer their wins, grumble when they're in a slump and root for them when they're in contention.
So bring on the new owners. Or don't. Newspaper readers won't notice a difference either way.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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