A good job with benefits and a pension are hard to find and if any American is fortunate enough to have a job, it is unlikely they would resign unless circumstances made remaining on the job intolerable. There are, however, occasions when a compassionate employer finds it necessary to force an employee to resign for bad behavior instead of terminating their employment. Members of Congress are unlikely to ever resign unless there is an impending ethics investigation or morality issues that are egregious enough to spark an investigation and subsequent trial to expel the offender from the House or Senate. Newt Gingrich was forced to resign his position as Speaker of the House in 1999 after being fined and reprimanded for ethics violations, but it was pressure from Republicans that forced his eventual resignation.

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The fact that the 2011 debt limit fight harmed the U.S. economy in various ways has been well documented, but a new report by a government auditor attempts to quantify one piece of it. Specifically, by walking the country up to the brink of default and spooking creditors and making borrowing more expensive, how much money did Congress cost the federal government?

The answer? In fiscal year 2011 alone, the debt limit brinksmanship cost the government $1.3 billion, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

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