'Was their tantrum worth $24 billion? I don’t think so,' Pelosi says. Dems blast GOP for budget saga

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t have nice words for Republicans the day after her caucus — along with less than half of the chamber’s GOP members — voted to reopen the government and avert a debt default.

“This is irresponsible, no this is reckless,” Pelosi said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon. “And then to see last night, when 62 percent of House Republicans voted against their own [budget] number, voted against opening up government and then voted against ending the default of our full faith and credit. What was squandered in that period of time, was not only quantitatively measured in terms of it slowed our GDP growth, jeopardized our credit rating, eroded consumer and investor confidence, it also diminished confidence in government, in governance. Did they know what this irresponsibility cost us?”


Pelosi pointed to a report by Standards & Poors that estimated the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion in lost GDP growth.

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“Was their tantrum worth $24 billion,” Pelosi said. “I don’t think so. Perhaps they didn’t know how costly it would be…. We knew it was at a cost in addition to the cost to the working families.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) echoed those sentiments.

“The larger lesson is that we have caused our country disruption. We cost our country money,” Hoyer told POLITICO. “It’s over one side taking a very hard line stance and saying if you don’t do something that they knew we wouldn’t do, that we couldn’t do, that if you don’t we will shut down the government and put the credit of the United States at risk.”

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Hoyer pushed back on suggestions that either side had won.

The lesson we ought to take is not who won or lost. The country loss, our reputation lost, the confidence that people had in the United States of America stability lost,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be regained and reinstated and reearned if you will. It does mean we ought to all learn the lesson that compromise is necessary.”