There’s No Reason to Fear a Shutdown
The U.S. economy will barely notice if the federal government needs to shut down because funding authorization runs out at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, December 21.
The five-week shutdown that began in late 2018 and stretched into January of 2019 is thought to be the costliest government shutdown in U.S. history. It lasted 35 days from December 22, 2018, through January 25, 2019, as Democrats fought against Donald Trump’s attempts to secure $5.7 billion of funding for a border wall.
Approximately 800,000 federal workers were furloughed or required to work without pay. Around $18 billion in federal discretionary spending for compensation and purchases of services and goods was delayed.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that this shutdown cost the economy around $11 billion in lost output, comprised of $3 billion in the fourth…
