It looks like we have a deal to end the shutdown and increase the debt limit. Ted Cruz (see: fraud) will not block the vote on the Senate Floor and, as of this moment, John Boehner (or, I guess, Eric Cantor who is now the only member of the House that can bring bills to the floor...huh?...so much for following rules) will allow a vote on the floor of the House and rely on Democrats to get the bill passed.
So, WTF, was this all about again? Oh, right...kill Obamacare....meep morp...kill Obamacare...meep.
I wonder how much money all of this cost the taxpayers.
2 comments:
It's in the billions of dollars in direct costs to the government because the House voted to pay government workers for two weeks of not working during the Republican shutdown, and countless billions in lost revenue and productivity to government contractors and their employees (such as defense workers, NASA contractors, etc.), as well as billions more in lost opportunity costs for towns and businesses near federal facilities such as national parks, Washington DC, and the like.
In the end it will likely have cost the economy tens of billions.
It will cost us many billions for the foreseeable future because of the uncertainty surrounding T bills that the threat to default caused. The Treasury will have to pay higher interest rates now because of this, and since interest payments are some of the biggest expenditures the government has it will only make things worse.
Finally, it may ultimately cost the dollar its privileged position as the world's default currency, if countries like China carry out their calls to move away from denominating things like oil in some currency other than dollars. How can the world depend on the currency of some Banana Republic that can't even keep its doors open?
Wouldn't it be funny if the Koch brothers had to buy and sell their oil one day in renminbi instead of dollars...
Government is not a jobs program.
Every cent of government taxation decreases economic activity.
Government spending either comes via taxation - which reduces economic activity, or debt - which devalues economic activity.
Whatever 'increased' economic activity that comes via direct government spending is less than whatever economic activity was precluded due to taxation or devaluation.
Saying that government spending causes increased economic activity is the broken window fallacy writ large.
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