WSJ: The Republican Party "Makes The U.S. Look Clowish In Eyes Of World"

WSJ's Alan BLINDER: The Republicans' flirtation with disaster. 

"What damage have we endured already from the partial government shutdown? Several private firms estimate that each week of shutdown trims the GDP growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2013 by something around 0.15 to 0.2 of a percentage point--with virtually all of that made up in the first quarter of 2014. If you don't care about messing up the lives of about 800,000 government employees, plus tens of millions of Americans who depend on their services, that may not seem like much. But there is also a less tangible, though perhaps more durable, cost of making the United States of America look clownish in the eyes of the world." Alan S. Blinder in The Wall Street Journal