I had this long, angry screed about the government shutdown accomplishing absolutely nothing and finally coming to an end before a global calamity could occur all written and ready to go, but I wasn't happy with it so I deleted it. I'm as fed up, embarrassed and dismayed with the utter stupidity of the situation and the people responsible for it as anybody (and "anybody" at this point also includes a lot of people who were originally at least partly responsible for the rationale behind it, if not the actual shutdown itself) but angry political punditry is not what I do. At least it's not what I do well. Folks like Peter Schorsch are much better suited to that than I am, so I'll happily leave it to them.
Still, I felt obligated to say something. And being as I've just admitted that it's not an area where I feel confident in expressing myself, I'll let the numbers speak and we can all just foam at the mouth or shake our heads or whatever feels right. I just hope that beyond whatever our initial, visceral reaction is, we remember all of this when the elections roll around again.
- 16 days.
- A $24 billion hit to the U.S. economy.
- A 6% reduction in the projected GDP growth for the quarter.
- $152 million lost per day in travel spending.
- $76 million lost per day by visitors to national parks.
- $160 million lost per work day due to government employee furloughs.
- 385,000 initial unemployment claims last week.
"Member of Congress who are refusing to raise the debt ceiling (or raise taxes) until their ancillary demands are met are acting immorally, since they are refusing to pay the debts they themselves authorized. " - conservative Christian Joe Carter
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