Shutdown Cost Economy $6 Billion

Outside the Beltway

By Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

Shutdown Cost Economy $6 Billion

The economy took quite a hit from the President’s pointless shutdown over a border wall that will never be built.

Doug Mataconis

January 27, 2019

Comments

Donald Trump’s border wall shutdown cost the U.S. economy significantly:

Donald Trump’s government shutdown cost the US economy at least $6bn (£4.5bn) in just over a month, according to the S&P Global Ratings.

The loss was driven by a fall in productivity from furloughed government workers, and economic anxiety which spread from the shutdown into the business sector.

Mr Trump agreed to reopen the government on Friday, 35 days into a shutdown he had forced in order to demand $5.7bn (£4.3bn) to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

The deal he struck with congressional Democrats included no funding for the wall, and is a temporary measure that expires in three weeks.

“Although this shutdown has ended, little agreement on Capitol Hill will likely weigh on business confidence and financial market sentiments,” the S&P said in a news release.

The shutdown impacted nine federal agencies, and roughly 800,000 federal workers were either furloughed or forced to work without pay.

That included federal aviation workers, which led to a meltdown on Friday resulting in delayed or grounded planes in Newark International Airport, LaGuardia International Airport, and Philadelphia International Airport.

As the saying goes, “Thanks, Trump.”

26 responses to “Shutdown Cost Economy $6 Billion”

SKI

January 27, 2019 at 1:53 pm

Drives me nuts everyone keeps ignoring the 1.2 Million federal contractors who are even more screwed than the federal employees.

12
Mikey

January 27, 2019 at 1:59 pm

@SKI: Not all of them. It depends on how the contract is funded. In fact, I work with a couple dozen and they all got paid on their regular schedules. It was only the govvies who were in pay limbo.

Unfortunately it’s usually the lower skilled, lower pay contractors whose contracts are affected by funding lapses–i. e. those least likely to have savings. And they really are screwed.

4
Kathy

January 27, 2019 at 2:47 pm

Any chance the US Treasury, say, or those who had to take on debt or lost income as a result fo the shut down, can sue Dennison personally for losses and damages?

3
grumpy realist

January 27, 2019 at 2:53 pm

And Mulvaney is jumping up and down claiming that yessiree Trump is perfectly willing to do this all over again if he doesn’t get his precious wall funding in three weeks time.

Can someone with a clue take this bozo out behind the woodshed and explain to him that trying a second bluff when your head honcho has been shown to be a pricked balloon already just won’t work?

I’m sure such braggadocio makes Trump happy and keeps Ann Coulter from whining, however…..

7
Mikey

January 27, 2019 at 3:09 pm

@grumpy realist:

And Mulvaney is jumping up and down claiming that yessiree Trump is perfectly willing to do this all over again if he doesn’t get his precious wall funding in three weeks time.

That would definitely be the dumbest, most ridiculous self-own in American political history.

3
CSK

January 27, 2019 at 3:43 pm

@grumpy realist: @Mikey:

Mulvaney has a track record of goading Trump into doing stupid, destructive things. Don’t be surprised if Trump does this.

7
Michael Reynolds

January 27, 2019 at 3:56 pm

I don’t think McConnell will be tolerating another shutdown, and he, not Trump, runs the Senate.

9
CSK

January 27, 2019 at 4:11 pm

@Michael Reynolds:

Then Trump has no choice but to go the national emergency route, which is what the base wants anyway.

5
Stormy Dragon

January 27, 2019 at 4:35 pm

@Mikey:

It depends on what sort of contractor we’re discussing. If they were a contractor who worked offsite or who is salaried, they’re probably okay. If they were onsite and hourly (e.g. an outsourced janitor for a federal building), then they likely lost pay because they weren’t able to put any hours in since their workplace was closed.

Unfortunately, those onsite hourly employees tend to be the lowest paid ones, so they’re also the ones least able to absorb losing a paycheck.

3
gVOR08

January 27, 2019 at 4:46 pm

@CSK: Trump would be declaring a National Emergency over what’s clearly just a political difference over a small, and unpopular, expenditure. IANAL, but I don’t think even Roberts and his cabal of Federalists want to go there, especially given the obvious likelihood of a Dem Prez in a couple years. So if Trump wants to add a string of court cases over an Emergency declaration to his other legal and PR troubles this year, more power to him.

4
CSK

January 27, 2019 at 4:54 pm

@gVOR08: This is all understandable if you accept that Trump didn’t intend, expect, or even want to win the election. This was a branding operation for him, so he went out on the campaign trail making a bunch of ludicrous promises he never thought he’d have to fulfill. Remember when he said he’d repeal and replace the ACA on Day One of his administration? Or the implicit promise to prosecute Hillary Clinton when he led all those chants of “lock her up”? Well, the base clearly doesn’t care all that much about the ACA, or even locking up HRC, but they do remember that promise to “build the wall”. Now he’s being reminded of it–constantly. This is one instance where his fans take him literally–and also seriously.

5
Michael Reynolds

January 27, 2019 at 5:00 pm

@CSK:
Yes, and I wonder why he hasn’t already done so. I wonder if he’s seen some legal analysis – reduced to a single sentence with pictures, of course – suggesting he could lose a court case if he did. Also, you gotta love the alleged conservative Republican seizing land from rich ranchers through eminent domain to build a wall everyone on the border knows is stupid.

8
Mikey

January 27, 2019 at 5:06 pm

@Stormy Dragon: This. Most of the IT contractors were fine, but a lot of the cleaning staff weren’t. It is very sad.

3
CSK

January 27, 2019 at 5:11 pm

@Michael Reynolds:

Legal analysts? Since when would Trump pay any attention to what they had to say, even if it was reduced to Dick and Jane level. He goes on his gut, remember? And his gut tells him to do whatever the person who at this moment is goading him, taunting him, or flattering him into doing.

8
gVOR08

January 27, 2019 at 5:13 pm

I can’t find it again, but I recall a story from the campaign that someone, I think Flynn or Manafort, scheduled a questionable meeting, a staffer said there might be trouble over it, and the individual replied that after they lost, no one would care. They all, including Putin, had a dog that caught the car look for several weeks after the election.

2
Mikey

January 27, 2019 at 5:23 pm

@Michael Reynolds:

Also, you gotta love the alleged conservative Republican seizing land from rich ranchers through eminent domain to build a wall everyone on the border knows is stupid.

There are still court challenges to eminent domain seizures that occurred along the border during the G. W. Bush administration.

But anyway, the Trumpies won’t care that their whole spiel about “constitutional conservatism” goes straight down the crapper when they start pushing for the government to just take peoples’ land. Cult followers are adept at altering their ethical frameworks to fit the cult leader’s desires.

6
CSK

January 27, 2019 at 5:27 pm

@Mikey:

The Trumpkins decided that eminent domain was great when Trump said he loved it.

5
Kathy

January 27, 2019 at 6:14 pm

@grumpy realist:

Can someone with a clue take this bozo out behind the woodshed and explain to him that trying a second bluff when your head honcho has been shown to be a pricked balloon already just won’t work?

Or that a bluff doesn’t work if you declare “I’ gonna bluff!” before the cards are dealt?

4
Kathy

January 28, 2019 at 9:42 am

I don’t expect Dennison to be able to learn from experience, but you’d think even he wouldn’t make the same blunder again. By announcing in advance there can be another shut down if he done’st get vanity wall money, he’s again making himself responsible for it.

He should be saying he’ll do everything possible to avert another shut down, right? Instead… Well, remember in the campaign eh also spoke about shut downs? And don’t forget, if you don’t think things are bad enough, he also claimed it would be great to default on US debt in order to renegotiate a “better” deal (and the ways in which that is wrong are so numerous, one hardly knows where to begin).
grumpy realist

January 28, 2019 at 10:48 am

@Concerned Citizen: You’re not concerned; you’re just a troll. Scram.
Daryl and his brother Darryl

January 28, 2019 at 11:12 am

@Concerned Citizen:

that amount is less then what the President was asking for to secure our borders

Then it was pretty stupid for him to shutdown the Government, wasn’t it?
Of course he also had to shut down his casinos, his University, his magazine, his airline, etc.
Apparently he fails really well.

2
Daryl and his brother Darryl

January 28, 2019 at 11:13 am

The number I’m seeing is $11B, with $8B permanently lost.
DrDaveT

January 28, 2019 at 12:03 pm

@Daryl and his brother Darryl:

The number I’m seeing is $11B, with $8B permanently lost.

It’s really difficult to quantify the marginal damage done (beyond the existing Trump effect) to confidence in US solvency, stability of the markets, reliability of the US as an ally or trade partner, etc. Beyond the losses of the shutdown itself, there are the losses due to the rest of world recognizing that the US is now a country that would be that stupid.
Daryl and his brother Darryl

January 28, 2019 at 12:44 pm

@Daryl and his brother Darryl:

The number I’m seeing is $11B, with $8B permanently lost.

I got that wrong…$3B permanently lost, $8B that will find it’s way back.
This according to the CBO.
Mister Bluster

January 28, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Haters???

Hard to love a self confessed sexual molester of women.
“grab them by the pussy!” says Trump.
Apparently you have found a way.
just nutha

January 28, 2019 at 1:45 pm

@grumpy realist: And one that left key words out of his or her statement thus impeding the likelihood that ignint crackers such as myself would be able to understand what the point of the thread post was.