U.S. businesses worry about a prolonged shutdown

Jason Cannon
Unit 2

Synopsis

In the Deseret News article US Businesses worry about a prolonged shutdown , the government shutdown is discussed as well as its economic effects.  The article does not go into very much detail about the economic effects, but it talks about the possible and current effects of the shutdown on businesses and individuals.  It gives several examples of businesses who are directly affected by the shutdown and talks about those who are indirectly affected by the shutdown.  It talks about the importance of the length of the shutdown and how that impacts the effects of the shutdown.

Detailed Analysis / Comments

The article stated that for every week the government is shut down, the economy loses .15% of its "annualized growth."  It also mentioned that 800,000 federal workers stopped getting paid, and that this had an effect on how they spent their money.  It claimed that they would cut back on things like eating out and hotels, which would effect these industries.  Near the end of the article, it said that the federal workers were not the only Americans who would potentially be more stringent with their money.  Ordinary citizens might lose their trust in the economy if the government remains shut down, causing them to not spend as much.  This in turn would hurt the businesses.  The article also mentioned that aspects of the economy directly tied the federal gov (such as the housing industry and defense contracting) are also being greatly impacted by the government shutdown. 

I don't know much about the effects of the government shutdown on the economy, but I understand that the effects are not good and that they get much worse with time.  Really big problems could emerge if Congress does not get this worked out soon.  The article mentioned that some think that people are making a bigger deal out of this shutdown than it is.  They don't think that the economic problems will deeply effect all of America.  I think that this might be the case right now, but if this shutdown goes on for a long time, all of America could be deeply affected economically.  The Republicans in the House could try to tweak the Obamacare funding, but I don't think they will get their way of defunding it.  Soon they just need to back down.  It would be interesting to see how many Republican citizens agree with what the Republican House is doing.