The US government shutdown on Saturday became the longest in history and is taking a growing bite out of the world's largest economy with each passing day, economists say. While most of the 21 "lapses" in government spending since 1976 left barely a scratch on economic growth, the length of this shutdown makes it harder to say just how bad the impact could get. "It's not a hard stretch to say that initially it's smaller and then it expands, the pain starts to widen," Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at S&P Global Ratings, told AFP. "Think of it as a butterfly effect." With about a quarter of the federal workforce affected, the shutdown is currently squeezing an estimated USD 1.2 billion a week out of the economy, Bovino said, but that figure could grow if it drags on. At the current rate, within two weeks it will have cost America more than the USD 5.7 billion US President Donald Trump is demanding for a wall on the border with Mexico, the dispute with Congress that led to the .
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