The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers on the government shutdown. Turns out the world's greatest businessman, aided and abetted by the party of fiscal responsibility, cost the nation $11 billion, $3 billion of which is not recoverable.
The shutdown delayed $18 billion in "federal discretionary spending for compensation and purchases of goods and services and suspended some federal services," the CBO calculates. That decrease in economic activity cost $3 billion in the last quarter of fiscal year 2018 compared to what it would have been otherwise. They estimate the real GDP loss for the entire first quarter of 2019 will be $8 billion, compared to what it would have been. "Although most of the real GDP lost during the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 will eventually be recovered," they say, "CBO estimates that about $3 billion will not be."
They also stress that the effects on individual businesses and workers are "much more significant" and harder to quantify, including all the business lost by private-sector companies, some of which "will never recoup that lost income." Reduced spending by furloughed workers, contracts with the federal government not being paid, and "reduction in aggregate demand" all combined to slow the economy. They also point out that there are effects they can't quantify at all, but are very real. One example: all the businesses that couldn't obtain permits and certification and loans during the shutdown.
They also conclude with a veiled warning for the White House, whose occupant is threatening to do it all again in three weeks: "Although their precise effects on economic output are uncertain, the negative effects of such factors would have become increasingly important if the partial shutdown had extended beyond five weeks." Just in case anyone in the White House is paying any attention at all.
