Day 776 of 1000
There is an interesting article over at The Numbers Guy blog at the Wall Street Journal titled Government Shutdown’s Price Tag. It basically says whatever number the government calculates as the cost of the shutdown is just wrong. He talks about how badly the calculation was done during the last two shutdowns and what it is impossible and worthless to even try (Hint: The U.S. economy is about the same complexity as the weather). There are a couple of other things that make Obama’s shutdown even more expensive that are of the Obama’s own making. Beside the greater amount of money Obama spends to keep people out of parks than it would cost just operate as usual, there is a good chance the Democrats will pay the furloughed government workers for services NOT rendered. From the article:
There is one other big variable to economic impact: What happens if Congress chooses not to award back pay to furloughed workers? After every prior shutdown, Congress has made up the withheld salary. “If the current situation lingers for several weeks, I suspect this Congress will be less willing to offer that pay,” Mr. LeBas said. “The multibillion price tag for doing so is more meaningful today in a deficit-conscious world, than it was almost 18 years ago.”
Whatever number is selected as the cost of Obama’s shutdown will almost certainly be used to blame the people who were actually trying to remedy the situation.
