Shutdown Cost the US Economy $24 Billion

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Time Magazine reports that according to an estimate from Standard & Poor's, the government shutdown, which ended with a deal late Wednesday night after 16 days, took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services, $152 million per day in lost travel spending, $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down, and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. With the deal only guaranteeing government funding through January 15, the situation could grow worse. 'This is a real corrosion on the economy,' says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. 'If we have to go down a similar road in the near future, the costs are going to continue to add up.'"

Comments

Re:Really?

[beatljuice]

First off, I don't want ObamaCare. But the fact is it was passed 3 YEARS ago and then vetted by the supreme court (I disagree with that decision by the way). The fiscal conservatives have had plenty of time to make changes to, or eliminate ObamaCare and haven't been able to. While I agree with the conservative stance on ObamaCare I also think the Republicans were basically throwing a temper tantrum here. I think they need to get some work done on small changes that might really happen instead of these big impossible tasks to make headlines. The government has grown unwieldy over the last century. We're not going to shrink it to a proper size in one election cycle.

Re:The govenment should just double spending.

[dgatwood]

40% is still low compared with most of the civilized world. Most of the countries that are significantly lower on the list also have a significantly lower standard of living than the U.S. The few exceptions almost all have either no military or a U.S.-supported military.