The last last chance

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been good to his word: Renewal of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund is set for a Tuesday vote. With 75 sponsors and having passed the House 402-12, that should be the last vote ever to grant financial support to the victims and heroes who have suffered and died from the poisonous gray plume of pulverized concrete that blanketed downtown when the twin towers collapsed after the terror attack.

What should’ve been the last vote came in 2010, when Congress reopened the fund, but politics forced a five-year cap. So in 2015, sick and dying first responders like the FDNY’s Ray Pfeifer dragged failing bodies to Washington to beg for help. Congress added five years. Ray then died.

This time, with the fund running dry and

soon expiring, sick and dying first responders like the NYPD’s Lou Alvarez dragged failing bodies to Washington to beg for help. Lou just died, weeks after testifying.

Now, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul refuses to go along without finding budget offsets, Utah Sen. Mike Lee wants to put another cap on the fund, he says to curb waste, fraud and abuse. The United States attorney general appointed Rupa Bhattacharyya, a career Department of Justice lawyer, special master for the fund. There is no waste, fraud or abuse.

Robert Gehrke, columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune, properly smacks Lee, noting that 40 of 62 Salt Lake City firefighters who were at the WTC have gotten sick. In the years ahead, does Lee want responders like these to drag failing bodies to Washington to beg for help?