States with big military, research facilities hurt most by shutdown

Source: Union Leader

October 18. 2013 9:32PM

States with big military, research facilities hurt most by shutdown

By ELAINE S. POVICH
Stateline.org

WASHINGTON — States with large military installations and major research institutions will suffer the most economically from the 16-day federal shutdown — especially the Washington, D.C. area, Hawaii and New Mexico, according to an analysis from Moody's Analytics.

To add insult to injury, states that paid to open national parks in their jurisdictions will not be automatically reimbursed for their expenses. Instead they are fighting for reimbursement with a separate bill in Congress. The states that opened the national parks did so in part because of the economic hit they were taking from curtailed tourism during the shutdown, which affected surrounding communities and state tax revenue.

The U.S. economy is likely to be back to recovery by early 2014, after Congress and the White House reached a bipartisan deal that reopened the federal government and raised the debt ceiling, according to Steven G. Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Analytics.

But the fallout will hurt states long after the deal. Hawaii and New Mexico are affected in an outsize way because of the concentrations of research institutions and civilian employment attached to military bases. The economies of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Washington State are also affected more because of large concentrations of federal agencies related to natural resources and land management, Cochrane said.


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