There were no winners in the shutdown of the U.S. government, only losers. The most obvious were taxpayers who did not receive services for which they had paid, and federal employees who were forced to undergo financial hardship. President Donald Trump lost politically. Trump’s approval rating decreased by 7 percent since December to 39 percent, primarily Republicans, according to a recent PBS Newshour/Marist poll,

Then there is the negative impact to the economy. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers estimates the loss at 0.13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product for each week the government was not fully operating. This is a loss to the economy of approximately $26 billion. To put the stupidity of the last month in perspective, that’s over four times the cost of Trump’s border wall.

If Trump and Congress did their jobs and were more concerned about the well-being of the country than partisan politics, this situation could have been avoided. The president is far better at inflaming problems than helping solve them.

George Seel

Belgrade


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