After Cruz is done talking, if the Republicans are really serious, they’ll skip the shutdown appetizer and go straight to the main course:
There is no real comparison between the cost of a shutdown and the cost of a breach in the debt ceiling.
The two shutdowns of the Clinton years — a six-day shutdown in 1995 and a 21-day shutdown between 1995 and 1996 — cost about $1.4 billion. A more complete accounting suggests that is on the low side. Nevertheless, employees and contracts would eventually be paid. Spending by the public that did not go to national parks might go to state parks instead. The damage would be fairly minimal in the context of a $16 trillion economy, especially if the shutdown were short.
In contrast, a breach of the debt ceiling and the ensuing market gyrations might cost hundreds of billions, perhaps more.
There’s a whole mythology built up around the Clinton-era shutdowns because of the DC Press Corpse’ need to sum up entire presidencies in a few short sentences focusing on personalities. (“Bill made Newt sit in the back of Air Force 1, so Newt threw a tantrum and shut down the government, which cost Bob Dole the Presidency” is how that goes–never mind that Republicans’ big losses were two years after the last shutdown and probably related to them pushing the Lewinsky scandal, which can never be spoken about again in polite company. BTW, the Carter Administration is so far in the past that the whole of it can be summed up by the same people in two words: “Sweater – Malaise”).
So I agree with DougJ and Harry Enten and everyone else who’s pointing out that a shutdown isn’t going to be as big a deal as the self-appointed myth makers think it will be, especially since a shutdown doesn’t have a large, real economic impact. The debt ceiling is another kettle of fish, and since we’ve got some real bomb-throwers in charge in the House, it’s probably where they’re going to make things go boom.