Tuesday, October 29, 2013

N.C. shutdown costs: Not as much as Democrats claimed

It was a screeching headline on the press release Tuesday from The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Tuesday: "Thom Tillis, Mark Harris, Greg Brannon & Heather Grant’s Reckless & Irresponsible Government Shutdown Cost North Carolina’s Economy Up To $340 Million."

Like its Republican counterpart, the DSCC takes every opportunity to put its opponents in a bad light. And it's true that Tillis, Harris, Brannon and Grant -- the announced GOP Senate candidates -- have said they supported efforts that led to a shutdown. And most if not all opposed this month's compromise that ended it.

But $340 million? According to John Mousseau of Moody's Analytics, the real figure is $95 million.

Why the discrepancy?

According to DSCC spokesman Matt Canter, the larger figure was based on national information provided by Moody's, based on  figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and used by Pew researchers and published by outlets such as USA Today.

But when I called Moody's, Mousseau said the shutdown cost North Carolina $95 million. Still a lot of money, certainly, but not $340 million. Apparently that state information wasn't available to the DSCC at the time it sent its release, which was reported on at least one N.C. media site.

The DSCC used the best information it had at the time.

"What both numbers show is that the GOP shutdown caused unnecessary damage to North Carolina's economy and should never have happened," Canter said.

3 comments:

Charles said...

How is there a "cost" when all the money spent would have simply added to the national debt?

Not a rhetorical question Mr. Morrill; you are a journalist - I expect a serious answer. IF you can provide one.

Jim Morrill said...

I know there have been studies that show the cost in states with a heavy military presence, which of course NC has. Here's a link to a Moody's study: http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/2013-10-21-budget-battle-postmortem.pdf

Anonymous said...

Whats the point? NC has 8 bases. VA has 26. Not a single base anywhere in the world was affected by incompetent empty chair 17.5 trillion dollar in debt Obama's shutdown.