"I don't think they should give in at all," Hannity said of House Republicans. "And if that means that they're going to sit this out for a month or two months, or however long the president wants to be arrogant and not talk to anybody, then just sit it out."
Leaving aside the "arrogance" comment -- what's more arrogant than a minority party abusing its fiscal duties in an attempt to overturn established law? -- what's most striking about Hannity's comment is its fiscal irresponsibility. A month? That's nearly $7 billion lost (almost two years of Republican food stamp cuts). Two months? That's nearly $14 billion.
While Hannity celebrates wastefulness, other Fox personalities have cheered cuts to Environmental Protection Agency activities which could lead to a more toxic environment. That potential cost, like the others being incurred, could eventually become very large.
These figures -- $1 billion, $14 billion -- are small in federal terms. But wasteful spending reflects nearly as badly on a person or a party as mean-spiritedness does. The amounts themselves are less significant than the spirit and values they reflect.
"Thrift is not an affair of the pocket," someone once said, "but an affair of character."
The Big Money
But for all the Republicans' profligacy, the billions now being wasted will seem like small change if Republicans carry out their plans to threaten the U.S. economy over the debt ceiling. That's exactly what House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan wants to do, and he's been appointed as one of the lead negotiators. "I like combining all of our leverage, which is sequester and the debt limit," Ryan recently told the far-right periodical National Review.
Most observers agree that's where the big money is, where the greatest destruction could take place. "What I'm concerned about," CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason said Wednesday, "is, what's the ultimate game plan from a certain element of Republicans?"
Added Mason: "The real war is the debt ceiling ... if that comes into doubt, then you could cause chaos in financial markets around the world."
The Republicans are tampering with an extremely fragile economy, endangering a recovery that has yet to reach millions of struggling Americans. The worst time to play fiscal games is when the economy's already in danger, and that's exactly what Republicans are doing.
"I think (the shutdown) will fold into the debt ceiling fight," Ryan told National Review. "I think that's inevitable. And preferable in my opinion."
Even if the money-wasting doesn't disturb you, those words should.
Re the numbers: Loss estimates are based on the income of furloughed Federal employees, which has been estimated at one "basis point" of the U.S. gross domestic product (one 100th of one percent) per week. Using 2012 numbers from the International Monetary Fund, that comes to $1,623,774,600.
That means the shutdown's costing us $324,754,920 per day, based on a five-day work week. The cost per hour, based on an eight-hour work day, is therefore $40,954,365. A month's losses are calculated by multiplying the weekly figure by 4.3, the number of weeks in an average month.
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