87% Chance of Shutdown, Per CRFB Budget Experts' Poll

The odds of a government shutdown, per the unscientific CRFB Budget Experts' Poll, have shot up to 87 percent (after dropping one expert's prediction of 425 percent).

If there is a shutdown, we will soon turn our attention to predicting how long it will last.

See below for previous releases of our CRFB Budget Experts' Poll.

In our second round of unscientific polling of budget experts, they now place the chance of a government shutdown in October at 70 percent – up from 58 percent three weeks ago. Twelve percent of respondents now think it is less likely than they thought three weeks ago, 27 percent did not alter their predictions, and 61 percent think the odds have grown.

We expect there will be an awful lot of talk about a government shutdown in the coming weeks and months, so we decided to create a highly unscientific poll to see how likely budget wonks think it is that we will have a government shutdown. This specific question looks at the probability of a shutdown of any length this October.

Our first official result of our unscientific poll is that the likelihood of a shutdown this October is…drum roll…58 percent. (It’s interesting to note that the experts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget place the likelihood significantly lower.)

We will continue to update the Budget Experts’ predictions throughout the Fall.