Congress is currently in recess and a well-known U.S. Senator is touring Iowa. Sen. Rand Paul is using some of the stops to talk about big American issues, like the government shutdown last fall.
For two weeks in October, the federal government was closed for business as lawmakers debated the budget. Sen. Paul voted against the budget deals that led to the shutdown, but he said he thought shutting down the government was a “bad idea.” The republican claimed:
"It cost us more to shut the government down than to keep it open.”
PolitiFact decided to examine that claim. Writer Joshua Gillin said it rates TRUE. Gillin said, it’s all about the numbers.
“When you're talking about third parties that the government owes money, well, they're not getting paid,” Gillin said. “So, you have to pay them and pay late fees.”
And that’s not all. During that two week period, several federally funded spots were closed to visitors. Some estimates point to $500 million lost in visitor spending because National Parks were closed. Gillin said, it extended to other government business, too.
“Services like EPA inspections or FDA inspections or the IRS was closed, so people couldn't get loans. And it cost the GDP a lot of money because the IRS couldn't give loans for identity verification,” Gillin said.
Many research groups say that because of the shutdown, the government had to pay all of what it normally would have spent during that two-week period and then some. Because of those facts, PolitiFact rated Sen. Paul’s claim TRUE.
SOURCES: THE COSTS OF THE FEDERAL SHUTDOWN
- PolitiFact's rating
- YouTube, Rand Paul Campaigns in Iowa for Miller-Meeks, Aug. 5, 2014
- Office of Management and Budget, "Impacts and Costs of the October 2013 Federal Government Shutdown," Nov. 7, 2013
- Congressional Research Service, "The FY2014 Government Shutdown: Economic Effects," Nov. 1, 2013
- Moody’s Analytics, "A Budget Battle Postmortem," Oct. 2013
- Business Insider, "S&P: The Shutdown Took $24 Billion Out Of The US Economy," Oct. 16, 2013
- Politifact, "Doonesbury says government shutdown took $24 billion out of the economy," Dec. 3, 2013
- Dan Mitchell blog, "Keynesian Economics, Government Shutdowns, and Economic Growth," Oct. 30, 2013
- Macroeconomic Advisers, "The Cost of Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy," Oct. 2013
- New York Times, "White House puts price on government shutdown," Nov. 8, 2013
- Forbes, "There Will Be No $24B Economic Loss From The Government Shutdown," Oct. 22, 2013
- Bloomberg News, "Fourth-Quarter U.S. GDP Forecasts Lowered on Shutdown," Nov. 1, 2013
- Email interview, Chris Moody, Yahoo! News reporter, Aug. 5, 2014
- Email interview, Brian Darling, Paul spokesman, Aug. 5, 2014
- Email interview, Emily Cain, OMB spokeswoman, Aug. 6, 2014
- Email interview, Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council on Economic Advisers, Aug. 6, 2014
- Email interview, Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Aug. 6, 2014
- Email interview, Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Aug. 6, 2014
- Email interview, Chris Edwards, editor of DownsizingGovernment.org, Aug. 6, 2014