Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Just doing a little math, the daily total cost to our economy from the 2013 government shutdown.

Just doing a little math here. . .

According to Brian Kessler, with Moody’s Analytics, a three- to four-week Federal government shutdown would cost the economy about $55 billion. (Isidore, 2013).

According to Republican Representative Tom Price, “Obamacare” will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years. (Price, n.d.).

So, that is $176 billion/year or $482 million/day for healthcare versus $55 billion per three- to four-week period for a government shut down. Let us assume that $55 billion is for a four week period giving us the least cost/day estimate of a shutdown. Even still that is about $1.96 billion/day.

So, which is really more expensive, affordable health care at $482 million/day or a government shut down at $1.96 billion/day?

Let the government run and have this argument without putting our country in the hole by $1.96 billion/day for an argument that does NOT need the government to shut down to occur.

Common sense people, common sense!!!

References

Isidore, C. (2013, September 30). Shutdown: A multi-billion dollar hit to economy. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/30/news/economy/shutdown-economic-impact/

Price, T. (n.d.). The cost of Obamacare threatens America’s wellbeing. (Press Release from Representative Tom Price). Retrieved from http://tomprice.house.gov/press-release/true-cost-obamacare-threatens-america’s-wellbeing

1 comment:

The Stone Rabbit said...

The government shutdown lasted for 16 days. Final estimates of the total impact on the economy are varied, of course. Walshe (2013) reported that Standard and Poor's (S&P) estimates the total impact to the economy at $24 billion or $1.5 billion/day; Moody's estimated $23 billion or $1.4375 billion/day; and the lowest estimate from Macroeconomic Advisors (2013) estimated the total hit to the economy was only $12 billion or $750 million/day. Remember (as you can see in my original blog post) that conservative Republicans estimate the cost of Obama Care at $176 billion/year, which is $482 million/day.

Anyway you look at these estimates, the daily cost of the shutdown to our overall economy, was more than the daily cost of Obama Care, the Affordable Care Act, or however you want to refer to it. I just wanted to update the numbers to reflect the reality.

By the way, Marcroeconomic Advisors is affiliated with the Peter G. Peterson foundation. As you may be aware Peter G. Peterson is a fiscal conservative and former Commerce Secretary under Nixon who went on to create a non-partisan foundation to look at issues relating to fiscal stability of our country.

The Congressional Research Service discusses the various estimates in more detail, but does not come to any conclusions of their own. (CRS, 2013).

References:

CRS (2013). The FY2014 Government Shutdown:
Economic Effects. CRS. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43292.pdf

(2013, Oct.) Special report: The cost of crisis driven fiscal policy. Peter G. Peterson foundation. Retrieved from: http://pgpf.org/special-reports/the-cost-of-crisis-driven-fiscal-policy

Walshe, S. (2013, Oct. 17). The costs of the government shutdown. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/the-costs-of-the-government-shutdown/