The two-week-old federal government shutdown is costing the U.S. economy about $15 billion a day in lost output, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, putting an estimate on its economic toll and urging Democrats to "be heroes" and side with Republicans to end it,
Reuters reports.
Bessent told a news conference that the shutdown was starting to "cut into muscle" of the U.S. economy.
"We believe that the shutdown may start costing the U.S. economy up to $15 billion a day," he said.
The wave of investment into the U.S. economy, including into artificial intelligence, is sustainable and is only getting started, but the federal government shutdown is increasingly an impediment, Bessent said.
"There is pent-up demand, but then President (Donald) Trump has unleashed this boom with his policies," Bessent said at a CNBC event held on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.
"The only thing slowing us down here is this government shutdown," Bessent said.
He said that incentives in the Republican tax law and Trump's tariffs would keep the investment boom going and fuel continued growth.
"I think we can be in a period like the late 1800s when railroads came in, like the 1990s when we got the internet and office tech boom," Bessent said.
