Tea Party Hostage taking produces debt rating downgrade

The inability of the U.S. government to operate rationally, as demonstrated in the recent hostage crisis over the raising of the debt ceiling, has led to the first ever downgrading of U.S. Credit Rating.  This may cost the gov. states, and counties, and individuals, billions in interest on credit.
The Republican Party has managed to not only stop any recovery during Obama's first term, but they have  also crippled the United States of America's economy despite only controlling the House of Representatives and half of our state Governments. They know how to abuse power.

Standard and Poor.  United States of America Long-Term Rating Lowered To 'AA+' Due To Political Risks, Rising Debt Burden; Outlook Negative

* We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating.
* We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative.
* The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.
* More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
See video in the post below.

* Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon.
* The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

TORONTO Aug. 5, 2011--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that it lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. Standard & Poor's also said that the outlook on the long-term rating is negative. At the same time, Standard & Poor's affirmed its 'A-1+' short-term rating on the U.S. In addition, Standard & Poor's removed both ratings from CreditWatch, where they were placed on July 14, 2011, with negative implications.


From the press release by S&P.
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.