(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its analysis of the Microsoft lawsuit’s economic costs and urged taxpayers to consider the impact of the Clinton-Gore Administration’s decision to pursue this case.

“Now that the Microsoft suit is before the Court of Appeals, where a decision is likely a year away, taxpayers should take this election season to consider the case’s costs, which, in the aggregate, amount to hundreds of billions of dollars,” CAGW President Thomas A. Schatz said.  “They should also consider whether they want the next administration to pursue not only the Microsoft case, but other antitrust actions against the economy’s high tech sector.”

The suit’s direct cost to taxpayers to date is close to $30 million.  According to information provided to Congress, the Department of Justice spent at least $14 million on the case.  On top of this, the state attorneys general have submitted a total of $15.4 million in costs to the federal district court for their time and expenses.  The latter amount gets paid to the state AGs only if they ultimately win the case.

In addition, the cost to consumers and software developers, according to a recent study from the Association for Competitive Technology, will be between $50 and $125 billion over 10 years.  One reason for this cost is that software designers will be forced to create multiple versions of their products due to the uncertainty of the Windows operating system resulting from the proposed breakup of Microsoft.

Finally, according to a recent study published by the Institute for Policy Innovation, the macroeconomic costs of the lawsuit include reduced growth in the gross domestic product by $147 billion through 2010. The study concluded  the lawsuit has accounted for approximately one-quarter of the drop in Microsoft’s stock price.  From Microsoft’s December 1999 high of $120 to $60 today, the overall loss in market value is $312 billion, with $78 billion thought to be caused by the case.  Added costs include a lower standard of living for Americans over the next decade, and a drop of $67 billion in federal government budget surpluses.

“Each day this lawsuit drags on, the news gets worse for taxpayers, consumers and the economy,” Schatz added.  “It is time for the government to take a hard look at the documented results of its actions, as opposed to its uninformed speculation that the breakup of Microsoft will actually benefit the nation.  Perhaps then it will drop this ill-advised action.”

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government with more than one million members and supporters nationwide.