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Economic Impact
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Official: Attacks may cost up to $105 billion10/05/2001
By JOEL STASHENKO NEW YORK — The World Trade Center disaster will cost New York's economy as
much as $105 billion over the next two years, city officials said Thursday as
they warned of budget woes even with a big federal bailout. While the city may limp through this year without major problems, Comptroller
Alan Hevesi said billions of dollars in lost revenue will begin causing
financial headaches as early as July. ``And that assumes the federal government picks up the major expenses here,''
Hevesi spokesman David Neustadt said. ``If not, then all bets are off.'' After the Sept. 11 attack, Congress appropriated $20 billion to help New York
with its recovery. Some of an additional $20 billion authorized for
anti-terrorist measures will also end up in New York. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki say President Bush regards the
aid committed so far as only a start. On Wednesday — as Bush visited New York
for a second time — the mayor said the president understands it will be ``very,
very expensive'' to rebuild New York. Just how expensive it may be is daunting. According to Hevesi, the trade center's destruction cost $6.7 billion; $12
billion was lost in computers and other office equipment; rebuilding the complex
will cost $5.3 billion; and the city's economy will lose $11 billion in spending
by the thousands of trade center victims. Hevesi also said 115,300 jobs would be lost this year alone, though that
number could be offset by gains in construction and other fields involved in
cleanup and rebuilding. The city's overall economy is estimated at about $380 billion a year. An early, preliminary estimate of the cleanup and rebuilding by congressional
aides placed the cost of the attack at $39 billion — a figure that did not
include lost economic activity. Hevesi's analysis says the attack may cost New
York up to $105 billion by June 2003 because of lost revenue, damage and
rebuilding. ``What this study makes clear is that what the president and Congress have
committed so far is just a down payment,'' he said. The economic costs of the attack have slowly emerged as the search goes on
for the victims. As of Thursday, the number of missing remained at 4,986, with
the number of confirmed dead rose by 11 to 380. Longer-term costs are still unfolding, including the damage to tourism. Flights at the three major airports serving New York — Kennedy, LaGuardia and
Newark, N.J. — are down substantially. Delta said its flights from Kennedy and
LaGuardia are off by more than 50 percent from pre-attack levels compared with a
32 percent decline nationwide. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, visited New
York on Thursday along with other business association leaders to boost tourism
and urge changes to federal tax laws and policies to aid the economy. He said there are signs the city is coming back. ``I was in town early last week and the energy level is up,'' Donohue said.
``There is great sorrow. But the economy is starting to bubble a little. People
are starting to get back in sync. Bankers are lending money. People are walking
faster. There are more people in hotels.'' The chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, Judith Hope, said she would
push for the National Democratic Convention to be held in New York in 2004. Thursday evening, a memorial service was held at the Theater at Madison
Square Garden for the 74 Port Authority employees who died during the attack.
Several thousand Port Authority workers, and family and friends, attended.
Tributes were given by authority executives, as well as Giuliani, Pataki and New
Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco. ``These have been the saddest of days,'' authority chairman Lewis Eisenberg
said. ``But they have been days of heroism and steadfast determination.'' Giuliani and Pataki also took Mexican President Vicente Fox on a brief tour
of the trade center site as heavy equipment operators plucked at the debris amid
the din of generators. ``We'll be side by side with the United States, with the nations of the world
in this fight against terrorism,'' Fox told reporters. Earlier in the day, Giuliani and Pataki joined hundreds of firefighters from
around the country at St. Patrick's Cathedral for a funeral mass for Capt.
Terence Hatton. Hatton was married to Giuliani's executive assistant, Beth Petrone-Hatton,
who learned a few days after her husband died at the trade center that she is
pregnant. ``He is the kind of man I would like my son to grow up and become,'' Giuliani
told mourners. |
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