(NBC News) – The country would face an economic hellscape if the government shutdown lasts “months or even years,” as the president has suggested it might, experts tell NBC News. The doomsday scenario might be unlikely — the longest the federal government has ever shut down is 21 days, a record that will fall if the current closure lasts until Saturday — but it is chilling. “We’ll be in no man’s land,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told NBC News. If the worst were to happen, experts say the devastating impact would be widespread:
- 38 million low-income Americans lose food stamps
- 6 million face an uncertain timetable for collecting tax refunds
- 2 million without rental assistance and facing possible eviction
- 800,000 paycheck-less federal employees plunged into dire financial straits
- Shuttered parks and museums while overstressed airports cause tourism to tank
- Federal court system slows to a crawl
- Disaster relief money doesn’t get to storm-ravaged areas
- Lapsed FDA and EPA inspections lead to dangerous outbreaks
- Private companies looking to go public are stuck in limbo
- Stock market plummets FULL STORY
The moral of the story is many “private” businesses are not able to survive on their own merits, they have to be kept afloat on the back of taxpayers who would just as soon not shoulder that burden. Let them fail. The ones that survive are the ones that should.