Shutdown Is Bad; So Is More Borrowing

For Immediate Release

The Senate is voting on two different plans to re-open the government this afternoon. One version would increase deficits by about $20 billion, including an additional “emergency” $5.6 billion for the wall and $12.8 billion for disaster relief. The other proposal to extend funding through February 8 also contains disaster relief, but the Congressional Budget Office has not yet published an estimate.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

Once again, our leaders are overcoming every new budget hurdle by increasing borrowing. They borrowed $30 billion to re-open the government last January and some are proposing to borrow another $20 billion this time.

The shutdown is harmful and a national embarrassment, but lawmakers should not resolve every disagreement by charging it to the national credit card.

Just last February, Congress greased the wheels for this deal with another $153 billion of new spending for this year, all of which was added to the debt.

Shutting down the government to get what you want is not a successful budgeting practice; neither is borrowing more to open it back up.

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For more information contact Patrick Newton, press secretary, at newton@crfb.org.