Cost of Government Shutdown Could Have Built TWO Border Walls

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The government will be open for three weeks, at least, which gives plenty of time for federal employees to be made whole and border funding negotiations to be taken seriously. Though, we don’t expect any good faith efforts from Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the last count. While there is a temporary reprieve from the government being shutdown, Democrats are still milking the issue to lay it all at the feet of President Trump.

However, as they often do, leading Democrats undercut their own pre-packaged narrative the longer the talk.

Take, for instance, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). He made a speech on the senate floor yesterday in which he bemoaned the ‘cost’ of the longest government shutdown in history.

This shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion, including $3 billion in economic activity that can’t be recovered.

Let me repeat: The #TrumpShutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.

What a devastating & pointless exercise this has been.@realDonaldTrump: No more shutdowns. pic.twitter.com/MbVungM051

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 28, 2019

Right off the top, Schumer posits that the shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, including $3 billion in lost economic activity that can never be recovered. Doesn’t that mean the other $8 billion in ‘costs’ can be recovered, so it wasn’t lost so much as delayed?

Even so, let’s take Schumer’s comments at face value: the government shutdown that transpired because President Trump and Republicans demanded border funding, and Democrats refused, cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.

The border wall funding that President Trump and Republicans were asking for? $5.7 billion. So the Democrats’ childish, political intransigence costs nearly twice as much as the funding they were refusing to approve. Had they agree to the $5.7 billion border security funding request initially, they’d have saved nearly $5.5 billion in costs to the United States.

Put another way, the cost of the government shutdown could have built the border wall…TWICE.

Thanks for the info, Chuck. Please say ‘Hello’ to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for us on when he launches his re-election campaign in New York City Thursday evening.