Bit by bit, over many weeks, in large chunks and one dollar at a time, generous Americans and others have raised almost $1.4 billion out of their own pockets for the almost 4,000 families who lost someone in the Sept. 11 attacks.

That's about $350,000 per family. Not chump change, and every dollar given freely out of sympathy and concern.

As part of the airline bailout bill, the Congress of the United States, simply by waving their hands, ripped billions of dollars from the pockets of these same generous Americans, so that the politicians could hand each of these families amounts ranging from $500,000 to $1.6 million, dwarfing the amounts from private charity, and basically negating the entire private charity effort.

Watch for lots of news coverage of smiling politicos handing checks to bereaved families. Politicos who didn't have to go door to door, run telethons, collect pennies at schools, give concerts, or write checks from their own pockets. Politicos who simply had to vote, and had been given the power to command the entire wealth of a nation. Politicos who will bathe in the glory while passing out other people's money.

In my opinion, this poisons the whole wonderful, charitable effort that occurred since Sept. 11. How many people are going to give generously next time? Let the government handle it.

Of course, to that group of politicians on the far left who see private charity as the enemy of state power, in the same category as private health insurance or private retirement accounts, this will be exactly what they want.

I think our government spit in the eye of every kid who raised money for the Sept. 11 victims, with the same unthinking boorishness and phony generosity as a millionaire who tears down a playground painstakingly handbuilt by school parents, so he can put up a much nicer and more expensive one.

And I think it stinks.