The government shutdown sapped the economy of $3 billion last year and another $8 billion this month, the Congressional Budget Office calculated Monday, putting a hard dollar total to the monthlong standoff.
The shutdown, which President Trump orchestrated in December, came to an end late last week, but some pain is likely to linger, the CBO said. While workers will get paid and back to work, some $3 billion of economic activity will be permanently lost, the analysts said.
“The shutdown dampened economic activity mainly because of the loss of furloughed federal workers’ contribution to GDP, the delay in federal spending on goods and services and the reduction in aggregate demand,” CBO Director Keith Hall said.
Two years into Mr. Trump’s tenure as president, the effects of his policies are beginning to be seen.
The tax cuts he signed did boost economic growth, though the effects are expected to wane as the sugar high wears off.
Meanwhile the new tariffs Mr. Trump has enacted will also take a bite, amounting to about a tenth of a percent of of real gross domestic product by 2022, the CBO said.
That will cut U.S. exports by about half a percentage point by 2022.
That figure only includes tariffs imposed so far, and doesn’t include any of the ones Mr. Trump has threatened to impose, should negotiations with other nations not go his way.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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