WASHINGTON: The two-week-old federal government shutdown is costing the US 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.

Bessent told a news conference that the shutdown was starting to “cut into muscle” of the US economy. “We believe that the shutdown may start costing the US economy up to $15 billion a day,” he said.

The wave of investment into the US economy 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.

He said that incentives in the Republican tax law and Trump’s tariffs would keep the investment boom going. “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.

‘Deficit has shrunk’

Bessent also said that the US deficit for the 2025 fiscal year ended September 30 was smaller than the $1.833 trillion deficit posted in the prior fiscal year. He did not provide a figure, but said that the deficit-to-GDP ratio could come down to the 3pc range in coming years.

The Treasury Depar­tment has not yet reported the annual deficit figure. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the US fiscal 2025 deficit fell only slightly to $1.817 trillion despite a $118 billion jump in customs revenue from Trump’s tariffs.

Airport video probe

The top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday called for an investigation into a Trump administration video airing at some airports that blames Democrats in Congress for the ongoing government shutdown and its impact on aviation. Senator Maria Cantwell asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate the video featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying it appears to violate a law known as the Hatch Act, which is meant to insulate government services from partisan politics.

A rising number of major airports have opted not to air the video over the partisan nature of the video including in Atlanta, Seattle, Indianapolis, New York and Las Vegas, Cantwell noted.

The video features Noem saying, “Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2025