The ridiculous, self-inflicted debt ceiling-fest cost the US government $1.7 billion $17 million dollars. That’s the amount of additional interest the USG had to pay investors when it went into the market to sell Treasury bills on Monday.
Quoting CNNMoney: “To be precise, the extra cost is $1,721,250,000 more in interest payments than the government would have needed to pay investors just two weeks ago, when they were willing to accept far lower rates before the debt ceiling became a crisis.”
Late Update: Hrrrmmrrm. As one reader has pointed out, the $1.7 billion figure cited by CNN doesn’t seem to add up. It seems dramatically higher than the math suggests — maybe an order of magnitude off. I’m not a financial journalist and the CNNMoney folks are. So I’m not going to say they’re wrong. It’s quite possible there’s a part of the math or their explanation I don’t understand. But let me take back my restatement of their numbers. I’m going to leave the post up for the record.
Later Update: And now CNN has updated their number, revising it from $1.7 billion to $17 million. Not chicken but quite a difference.
