The budget cuts are less than the damage done by shutting down the government for thirteen days.

[TheWraith]

The "cost" of shutting down the federal government, in terms of cash not going to things like heating assistance, school lunches, regulators, etcetera, is about $3 billion dollars per day.

The budget is $38 billion below what was proposed.

Had a government shutdown occurred, we would have within thirteen days done as much damage as all the budget cuts put together.

[RC]

1. Where is it written that the shut-down had to be 13 days?

It could have been a day, or less.

[TheWraith]

3. Who said it wouldn't have been twenty days? Or thirty?

Who says that after one day, the Republicans would magically cave and give us everything we wanted? The 1995-1996 shutdowns totaled almost four weeks.

[RC]

4. Apparently you are not old enough to remember when Bill Clinton shut down the government?

What happened then? The same thing would happen this time. People still got paid when the republicans caved. Life still went on. Most of what you hear is scare mongering. Start questioning.

[TheWraith]

5. I am, in fact, old enough.

But thank you for the condescension.

[frazzled]

2. That is true, and here is a good graphic

$38 billion (or even $78 billion--I can't even tell what the final number is) sounds huge to me, but when I looked at this chart of the 2011 budget, it looks very small:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html