Prometheus 6   

Who do you think you are -- Iraq?

Report Fuels Fear That City Won't Get All of Promised 9/11 Aid
By CHARLES V. BAGLI

New York officials have long worried that the city will get billions of dollars less in federal aid to rebuild Lower Manhattan than the $21.4 billion President Bush promised after the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Although the White House, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have dismissed those concerns, a new report by the General Accounting Office is helping to increase them.

The report, which will be released this week, says no information is being collected to determine whether many of the tax benefits that account for a quarter of the entire federal aid package are being used. In essence, the report says, the city may never know how much of the $5 billion in so-called Liberty Zone tax benefits are ever used.

For the most part, the report says, the Internal Revenue Service does not collect or report information about the use of six of the seven tax benefits.

There is a growing consensus among state and city officials that the tax benefits are worth far less than the $5 billion federal officials originally estimated.

"It's disturbing," said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of Manhattan. "They're not going to have any records of how much was spent, or the value of what we've gotten. New York deserves to get the full $21.4 billion it was promised."