Shutdown — a $24 bil. hit to U.S. economy
Publisher’s note: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D), Barbara Boxer (D) and Harry Reid (D) voted to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, Sen. Dean Heller (R) voted against it; Reps. Tom McClintock (R) and Mark Amodei (R) voted against it.
By Toluse Olorunnipa, Kathleen Miller and Brian Wingfield, Bloomberg
Gum Tong owns a diner in Washington, D.C., and Matt Bellinger charters fishing boats in the Florida Everglades. They have this in common: The shutdown of the U.S. government cost them money they will never get back.
Pete’s Diner & Carryout, a 50-year-old Capitol Hill eatery frequented by House Speaker John Boehner, lost about 80 percent of its usual business, said Tong, surrounded by empty seats and Halloween decorations. Bellinger missed out on $1,000 a day in canceled charters because Everglades National Park was closed.
“What people have been doing in droves is saying ‘We’ll go to Disney World,’ or ‘We’ll cancel our trip and go home’,” Bellinger said in a telephone interview. Nineteen groups dropped plans for four-hour fishing trips.
“I can’t make that money back,” he said. “It’s gone.”
The U.S. economy is big and resilient. Now with the 16-day shutdown ended and the threat of a U.S. default at least delayed, economists will probably look back on this as a glitch, one of those passing crises that seem so common nowadays.
For people like Tong and Bellinger, and for thousands of small businesses, this was no glitch. It’s money that can’t be easily recovered, creating a long-term ripple effect — with the holidays approaching — that will be difficult to forget.
Business leaders say they are nervous. Companies from Knoll Inc. to NCI Inc. have said they expect the shutdown to affect fourth-quarter revenue. Knoll, an officer furniture maker, expects about $10 million of government business to be pushed into next year, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Cogan told analysts Wednesday on a conference call.
Americans were the most pessimistic about the nation’s economic prospects in almost two years in October, as concern mounted that continued political gridlock will hurt the expansion. The monthly Bloomberg Consumer Confidence Index expectations gauge plunged to minus 31, the lowest level since November 2011, from minus 9 in September, a report showed today.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services yesterday said the shutdown has shaved at least 0.6 percent off of fourth-quarter 2013 gross domestic product growth, or taken $24 billion out of the economy.
Just another example of the “le$$ government” party costing us more.
Thanks GOP!
Yeah. I think we need a one-party system. Just like the old USSR, and the PRC, and Cuba did so well with.
All these upstarts disagreeing with the King is getting out of hand.
I wish the media would quit slanting articles. When the House passed a bill to keep the government open the Senate shot it down and the President said he would not negotiate since it included a defunding of Obamacare. That resistance to negotiate is what brought on the unacceptable position of default.
Let’s lay bare both sides of the issue. They are all equally guilty of partisan politics which is hurting the country.
I saw an interesting analysis the other day which claimed that there are 51% of voters who are like minded in the middle of issues, plus 21% on the far left of the Democratic party and 28% on the far right of the Republican party. If we could figure out how to align the 51% with each other the country could run smoothly in spite of the 21% and the 28% who will never agree with each other.
I wish the teabaggers would make some sort of effort to get back in contact with reality. Pull your heads out of your rush for a change. The political maneuvers of the Koch Bros. numerous front groups such as Freedom Works have been planning this gov’t shutdown for months.
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/ryanriebe//joint-letter-on-sequester-savings
The never-ending obstruction and undermining of the Obama administration has continued unabated since day 1, 2009. To try and pretend that ridiculous House bills passed with the GOP majority calling for all kinds of crazy things, including 40+ stupid, wasteful attempts at defunding the ACA, were real legislation is complete nonsense. Even the sponsors of such bills were aware that they were DOA in the Senate and were just to appease those voters back home that hate the idea that someone like Pres. Obama is in the White House and many of them admitted as much.
There is no equivalency when it comes to this latest un-American BS, this is GOP planned and executed all the way to score some imagined political gains by ruining the economy and blaming the President.
Haven’t you despicable seditionists caused enough damage to our country? Have you no shame?
“Haven’t you despicable seditionists caused enough damage to our country? Have you no shame?”
Go read your Constitution.
And do a little research on who is controlling the Democrat party. You keep talking about Limbaugh and the Koch brothers. Who pays to keep your operatives working? ‘Cause it sure as heck ain’t grass roots. Takes a lot of money to feed all those Occupiers and Acorn and OFA agitators.
You continue to insult everybody who disagrees with your position. You say the shut-down was in the works for months. But the White House ordered all those barricades weeks before they were needed. And kept non-essential Federal employees busy keeping the American people out of THEIR parks, and places that the Feds never paid any attention to before, like beaches, and road turn-outs. Just to make sure the people were inconvenienced as much as possible.
Purely vindictive. Who is running your party?
Bijou Bill-I take it the answer to your questions are-#1-we will do whatever it takes to ruin Obama no matter the cost to the country-and #2-Yes we have no shame.
Read some history. Our system was set up to make government difficult. The founders didn’t want it to be easy for any majority to be able to force its will on any minority. You are trying to force the American people to give up their liberty to choose. Medical insurance in this particular case, is the cover for a Federal takeover of an enormous sector of the American economy.
No, we will not make it easy. You call it sedition. I call it patriotism.
“The founders didn’t want it to be easy for any majority to be able to force its will on any minority.”
Yet you take no issue with a SMALL minority forcing it’s will over THE majority?
‘You are trying to force the American people to give up their liberty to choose.’
YOU are trying to force Americans from being ABLE to make a choice.
I used to hate history in high school. I felt it was pointless and I had no interest in it. My dad always told me that history was the most important subject because it repeats itself and people should learn from it. I have learned this is true.
When I was old enough to vote, I’d complain about what was going on in the country and my grandma told me, “It is your generation’s fault because you are all to lazy and don’t vote.” After that conversation, I would talk to my friends. Most of them would complain about how things were. I’d ask them, “Did you vote in the last election?” Most would answer, “No, because my vote doesn’t matter.” I came to realize that if every person who had that opinion voted we would be in a different place. Stop thinking your vote doesn’t matter and go out and vote! It is our right as American citizens! If everyone voted we could change the way this country is run.
I wish I still believed this but, I have become tainted by the fact that, “Corporations are people”, lobbyists have money, and the politicians are paid to “HELP THE PEOPLE”. In actuality, people are now governed by big business and we are peons to the rich. All the bickering back and forth does not change the way things are. We need to stand UNITED! There should be term limits, corporations should not get breaks, limits should be put on campaign contributions, and THERE SHOULD BE TERM LIMITS to holding public office! I know I repeated myself but, I feel strongly that, corruption occurs when people want to keep their jobs (AND THERE SHOULD BE TERM LIMITS)!
“You are trying to force the American people to give up their liberty to choose. Medical insurance in this particular case, is the cover for a Federal takeover of an enormous sector of the American economy.”
OK lets take a a look at what we are really being forced to do. Currently, our health care system cost 17% GDP. The highest of any nation.
We spend the most by far. The second highest spender, is 12% GDP. And what do we get?
We get the bottom of the 50 nations measured in healthcare.
Those are facts dawg. You can’t deny them
If anything, people like you are forcing this entire country to bleed out 5% of our GDP on a system that is a complete failure by all measures.
that is $750 Billion.
wasted.
with numbers like that, you can take your fiscal conservative rationale and GFYS.
you are actually supporting a system that Fs all of us.
Free market my A. You want to force us to get F’d for a load of S that you think it just fine.
You want to save some real money for our country? Stop being such a sucker or stop voting. Ignorant people like you are bringing us down.
Our form of government is seriously flawed. I think we can all agree on that. I once had a conversation about what would be the best kind of government. A pure democracy didn’t win, because in a pure democracy the majority steals away the rights of the minority. Our republic form didn’t win, because the elected official’s act primarily to get themselves re-elected, or elected to higher office, while not being concerned about the citizens. A monarchy prevailed in this discussion. That my be hard to believe, but it’s true. We all agreed however, that a bad king or queen was the great danger of a monarchy, because the bad ones tend to kill the citizens. So, what if we had a monarchy, but kept the king (or queen) in check through use of military power vested in the people. Is this possible? Not in our lifetimes. But perhaps possible after all hell breaks loose.
TERM LIMITS I would prefer over leaving the status quo. There is a risk, however that term limits would cause the loss of some good legislators that do a good job. But after watching the last ten years, I’m willing to take that risk.
When will you folks on the left stop believing everything you read? The shut down cost the country 40 billion? Wow, if that’s true then we should triple the size of Government I guess, hire millions more… Really? Thanks Heller and all the others for voting against opening this wasteful Government! Shame there are only a few that actually care about the American people.
Have you ever seen a chicken fight? There is a lot of jumping wing flapping and clucking usually no one gets hurt and nothing is resolved. Eventually everyone gets tired and goes on there way. This is a good example of washington politics.
NAZIs, and the Taliban were/are very small minorities in their areas of great carnage. If 14% support 1%, what a con job.
Once again, BijouBil and cosa pescado have nailed this issue.
These are some of the least informative most silly comments I have read on these boards (from both sides). The GOP took a lickin last week, nuff said. It was a fight they could not win.
Things like healthcare are typically decided on elections and a small faction of the GOP just managed to alienate even more voting Americans making it more difficult for the GOP to gain power and hopefully put forth some sort of plan to deal with the rising health costs of an aging baby boomer population. (The last actual GOP plan for longterm healcare was John McCain’s and was the same thing as ACA, but he’s white and republican so “it made more sense” back then)
The Boy-King named Hussein who can’t lead, can’t negotiate and can’t come up with a budget in FIVE years. He is to blame for using CR’s that were never designed to fund the federal govt. except for short-term emergencies. The next shut-down is soon. The lost money is mostly fake except this time, under orders to close private businesses who were targeted for losses from DC simply to cause pain, most of the money taken out is all returned when the federal employees are paid. False liberal media stories from operatives are worthless.
Justin, you’re WAY off base!
“Once again, BijouBil and cosa pescado have nailed this issue.”
Gracias.
I am surprised my comment wasn’t deleted.
I’ve said this before. I don’t care what we do, but we need to do better. I don’t think we can do any worse than our current healthcare system. The people who don’t have any ideas as to how to fix it, are morally bankrupt. And they call them selves fiscal conservatives, who think it is OK to bleed 5% GDP per year.
Next time we invade a country under false pretenses, lets invade one that gives us healthcare.
This message brought to you by Sr. Fish PAC 2020, because I won’t be old enough to run for office in 2016
Justice, you need to read your Constitution and understand where budgets come from. The Constitution is quite clear on who spends the money.
Cosa, right on the money…
While this old issue distracts we forget about all the spying the Obama Administration has done. On both Americans and world leaders. The world leaders are up in arms against us now and demanding the UN take action…
can you grasp how much damage this has done to our cred. in the world?
Spying on world leaders is bad enough but spying on Americans for no cause, how can this be?
It’s a true circus…
Then in this corner we have Obama Care rollout disaster
and over in this corner… ????
What a mess this has become
CJ, are you actually saying that we, and our allies have never peeked over each others shoulders? I’m pretty sure that has been going on since espionage has been part of the human condition. And this will become nothing more than distant blip on the radar screen of our foreign relations within a month. President Obama has brought the world view of America back to a somewhat respectable level after eight years of George W trying to do his best to send it back to the stone ages.
Biiggerpicture,
To me a person that can compare the outrageous spying Obama’s NSA did to “peeking over each others shoulders” is either a lier or a fool.
I wonder, what be you?
CJ, to me a person that can make as many rude comments and call as many people nasty things, spew false Fox talking points, and just plain make the most ridiculous claims is nothing but a………well had I written it it wouldn’t have been posted.
And we ALL know what YOU are!
Peace out!
lier: One who lies down; one who rests or remains, as in concealment.
CJ, a report just breaking (Reuters) that Angela Merkel’s phone surveillance may have dated back to ’02. Was Obama president then?
biggerpicture.
That’s funny as a conservative I am always called nasty things.
Perhaps you missed that part. Libs are first ones to name call and first ones to cry.
As for rude, you want to talk about Rude? comparing what Obama has done to “peeking over ones shoulder”. Is am insult to the TRUTH.
That is rude.