What the $25 Billion Shutdown Could Have Bought

No one who voted for or supported the government shutdown gets to whine about government spending ever again. Or not until they write the taxpayers a $25 billion check.

Bryce Covert at Think Progress:

The shutdown may have ended when President Obama signed a deal late on Wednesday, but some of the consequences will stay with us. Standard & Poor’s has estimated that the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion.

That’s not a small amount of money. How does that stack up against other big expenditures? Here’s just a sampling of what else costs that much:

- The net cost of to the government from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP): $24 billion

- The Department of Agriculture’s proposed budget: $22.6 billion

- NASA’s approved budget: $16.6 billion

- All air transportation programs, including the Federal Aviation Administration, security, research, and other costs: $21.9 billion

- The Child Tax Credit: $22.1 billion

- The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (formally known as welfare): $17.7 billion

- The cost of Head Start, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Women Infants and Children (WIC) program combined: $25.2 billion

The topline figure may not take many other costs into account, such as loans that didn’t go out from the Small Business Administration, permits that got held up, and the loss of billions in tax revenue. Plus the government could still get a downgrade on its credit, which could ding business and consumer confidence and bring about more costs.

The shutdown was just the latest budget crisis that has been costly to the economy. A recent report found that the uncertainty created by fights over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling that have cropped up since 2010 has cost the economy nearly a million jobs.