Of course, all of this is blown out of the water if the dispute over raising the debt ceiling persists long enough that there is a default or near-default on the U.S. government's obligations. In the event of a new, self-induced fiscal crisis, all bets are off on how much GDP growth and other measures of economic well-being will be affected. It almost certainly will not be measured as a few tenths of a percent of growth confined to a single quarter.