Dr. Bernadine Healy, who had replaced Elizabeth Dole as head of the American Red Cross, tearfully resigned her position over the arguments that ensued amongst the board of directors to whom she reported. Many members of the board wanted to put the money in their General Fund and distribute only part of it to the families of victims. Dr. Healy argued that all of the money should go to the families and set up a separate Liberty Fund to do so.

On November 1, the Toronto Star Newspapers reported that $10 million of the $530 million collected so far had come from Canadians and they were concerned. Thinking that the money was theirs, the Red Cross had scheduled $109 million towards upgrading telecommunications, accounting, and database systems. Another $50 million was to go to the blood program, even though people all over the U.S. had been setting records in blood donations. $26 million was ticketed for community outreach; $19 billion for indirect or administrative relief costs; and $11 million for international assistance.

Every donor may have expected the money to be dispersed amongst the victim's families, but that wasn't happening. Although the Red Cross promised that each family would receive three months living expenses, only $40 million had been distributed as of November first, more than six weeks after the attack.

And why shouldn't the Red Cross spend this money as it sees fit? The federal government does the same thing with our retirement and health care money. We give them more than they need and they spend it wherever they please. And we're not talking about a mere half billion dollars here.

During fiscal 2001, the federal government took $98.7 billion from Social Security retirement money and spent it elsewhere. They took another $74 billion from other entitlements of which Medicare was part. And they only paid $66 billion towards one side of the national debt, while overall the debt rose $133 billion, all money for you and your children to pay back someday.

If the nation's lawmakers can do this sort of thing, it's a strong incentive for other entities to believe that they have the right to do likewise.

With that sort of example, I'm surprised the Red Cross didn't try to set up some sort of phony trust fund. If they had the power of Congress and the U.S. Treasury, they could have issued some nonmarketable Red Cross bonds to claim they were keeping track of the donations spent elsewhere. They could even pretend to have merely borrowed the money.

Finally, on November 14th and more than two months after the disaster, Harold Decker, the Interim Director of the Red Cross said he was sorry "our actions over the last eight weeks have not been as sharply focused as the American public wants or the victims of this tragedy deserve." The entire $543 million collected to date would now go to the families of the victims as intended.

As the new President, George W. Bush could be doing something similar but he isn't. Instead, he has appointed a committee to find ways of implementing his "personal accounts" system. An idea borrowed from his father, similar to the federal employees Thrift Savings Plan established in 1987, and addressed to only one small part of the Social Security market. The lion's share of entitlement rip-offs will still go to the government to do with as they please.

Under the cloak of being busy with the New War, Bush will railroad his plan into law in almost record time. Not having postponed anything, the commission is due to deliver its final report in early December. And the American people will all stand up and cheer, not recognizing that they've again been had by a bunch of Beltway Bandits that are not about to give up their booty easily.

Ever since we embarked on the mission of Social Security reform, the government has been pussy-footing around the simplest of problems to solve. Stop stealing the money! Either rescind the excess entitlement taxes, in this case payroll taxes, or invest the surplus wisely. The latter would mean putting that money to work anywhere except in bogus bonds developed solely to hoodwink the public after the money has really been spent on pork-barrel projects.

The federal government should take a lesson from the Red Cross's ability to admit when it is wrong then turn around and do the right thing.

And the general public should recognize the example of what can be put right if they complain loudly enough.