First of all, you should all be following what has been happening to the billions collected for the surviving families of victims of the World Trade Center. The American people responded with overwhelming generosity donating money to help the families.

All sort of things happened then, beginning with the Red Cross trying to pilfer a good part of this money to their own ends but ending with federally appointed overseers handling the dispersal of funds still coming in and not yet totaled.

With the final count of people killed in the collapse of the two towers falling to below three thousand and the pile of donations increasing, each family's share of the pie is constantly increasing. It's now up to about $1.3 million per family and greed is beginning to show its ugly head.

Quite rightly in my mind, the overseers have decided to dole out this money subtracting the life insurance these families are due to receive from insurance companies who are, at the same time, not asking the government for help.

If you had to pick people and companies most likely to be heavily insured, the international banking community housed in the WTC would have to be near the top. Of course, many service support people, unfortunate visitors, and those in surrounding buildings may not have been as heavily covered.

At any rate, a squabble is taking place. The overseers are asking the families to each sign-off on their rights to sue the airlines that allowed planes to be seized by terrorists and used as weapons of mass destruction. On the advice of counsel, many of the families are not willing to sign away this option.

With more lawyers than all other nations of the world combined and the right-to-sue the next best thing to winning the lotto, it comes down to who has the deepest pockets. Airlines already staggered by serious drops in people willing to travel but being subsidized with something like $17 billion in temporary help from the government, or the final count of money still coming in from fund-raisers ranging from local groups to Hollywood.

Meanwhile, mortgages are due, rent must be paid, the kids need things and many family victims can only hold out so long. It will be interesting to see how it's all resolved.

Workers clearing debris and others surrounding ground zero are also complaining of lung ailments and thinking of suing the City. Turns out, the WTC was built by the New York Port Authority using a lot of asbestos.

Another story

In my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, we've had an ongoing battle with our school district because for years the district used its tort fund to conduct normal business. A tort fund is money that's supposed to be set aside to handle any possible liability incurred by the schools like people slipping on the ice when it's not shoveled and so forth. It's like entitlement money, not to be spent elsewhere.

For years, District 205 simply threw this tort fund money into their "unified" budget accounting and spent it just like the federal government has for years stolen your extra Social Security and Medicare payroll tax payments spending those hundreds of billions wherever they please.

Finally, a gutsy lawyer named O'Brien initiated a protest that evolved into a class action lawsuit against the school district for this misappropriation. Officials scoffed, and most of the 140,000 citizens said "you can't fight City Hall," but 17 thousand people signed up the first year to pay their taxes under protest.

The lawsuit went on for several years but finally ended up with the people winning. Now the school district is supposed to refund payments to individuals throughout much of the city. And how do they intend to do it? By increasing taxes, of course.

There's a lesson here folks.

The government has no money except what they get from you. When the government does something wrong, there's nobody to pay for it except you the taxpayer. The government people who caused it go Scott-free.

Most of us would like to see some way of holding government people accountable and punishing them for evil deeds. At the very least, bust them down to nothing, put them in jail or exile them to Elba (the old-fashioned Guantanamo). How about that island off Puerto Rico where the navy holds bombing practice?

Now think back, if you can remember a time before September eleventh. Weren't all the experts telling us the same thing? If and when Social Security must turn to its trust fund, the government will be faced with the "tough decision" to either (1) raise taxes, (2) borrow enormous sums in your name, or (3) cut back on their wild spending or your benefits?

So much for torts and entitlements.