The drivers are still making $700 to $1,000 a week. But to get these tax-free checks they have only to prove that their company had accounts near the World Trade Center and that they lost income as a result of the September 11 attacks. How much they’ve lost is not an issue.
“Our guidelines,” says Cheryl Clark, a volunteer from Reno, Nev., “are that we don’t inquire into someone’s financial background… We don’t want to make it too hard.”
As of the end of January, Red Cross case workers estimate that 2,000 to 3,000 drivers had already received checks, even though word of the organization’s generosity began spreading only in December. If just 4,000 limo drivers end up getting an average of $7,500, their $30 million in aid would nearly match the $36 million spent by the Red Cross since 1998 to aid the 2.5 million victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America.
One driver presented a letter from his limo company citing two law firms and an investment bank as accounts located near the Trade Center. In fact, all three are still in business and fully staffed. He then presented printouts of the fares he had been paid for one week in July and for the week of Sept. 17. It appeared as if his income had dropped more than 60 percent. But a closer look showed that within two weeks his business had picked up. By the time he made his claim in January, he later said, he was back to “within 20 percent of what I was making last year”–a deficit felt by lots of New Yorkers or other Americans. Because he has no mortgage on his house, he left with only $5,100, tax-free. Six other drivers I spoke with received checks ranging from $6,500 to $11,000.
Do the math: if their incomes are down 30 percent or even 50 percent from, say, $4,000 in taxable earnings per month, these tax-free, three-month payments put them well ahead. And they may be able to apply for six more months of aid this spring, says the Red Cross’s Nancy Rutherford.
Thousands of September 11 victims who are unambiguously needy have also been helped by the Red Cross–people rendered homeless or jobless, or who lost loved ones or suffered severe injuries. And they’ve been tended to by volunteers from across the country whose tireless efforts offer a chills-down-the-spine affirmation of the American spirit. But the limo drivers’ aid raises the question of whether the Red Cross–whose traditional role is to provide immediate needs like blankets, food and shelter, and did so at 67,000 fires and other disasters last year–has more money for September 11 than it knows what to do with.
“I don’t think… we have too much money,” says Harold Decker, who took over as Red Cross CEO in November. “It’s just that we recognize that these drivers have livelihoods, too, that we have to take care of.” Asked about the drivers’ windfall, Decker adds: “We also recognize that there will have to be an endpoint for us paying for these economic losses. But it’s difficult to draw the line.”
Besieged by public pressure following press revelations that it might not spend all that it raised in September 11 appeals on victims of that tragedy, the Red Cross fired Decker’s predecessor, Dr. Bernadine Healy, last November and vowed to spend every penny only on these victims. Despite a deluge of claims, the Red Cross was criticized even more ridiculously for the “red tape” that was keeping victims from getting money instantly. So there is now no red tape, almost no hassling over details like financial need or proof of expenses. “After the bad publicity,” says one volunteer, “we did a complete one-eighty, and went from checking claims carefully to competing among ourselves to be the most giving.”
A mountain of money has been put up for the September 11 victims: $850 million raised by the Red Cross (more than 10 times what it has spent on any other disaster), $650 million more raised by other September 11 charities through telethons and the like, and $5 billion likely to be spent by the government for the federal Victim Compensation Fund. It all adds up to an inescapable if awkward argument that the least needy legitimate charities in the world today may be those related to September 11.
True, by giving so much we will have demonstrated that we are willing to use not only our military might but our prosperity to make sure that terrorism absolutely never works. But that argument works only if we now go back and help the victims of Oklahoma City and the embassy bombings, and if we make sure we provide for the next victims of a terrorist attack the way we have for the September 11 victims, neither of which we seem about to do.
Red Cross officials held a press conference last week to assure the world that they were on track to give away all the money as quickly as possible. As if that were the issue.
