Via ThinkProgress.org
ABC News reports: “A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value.” Among the reasons cited will be “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”
Bold text added by the diarist
Yup, the GOP plan of 2011 was "If it ain't broke, break it", and it has worked.
Officials reasons given will be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling, and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction. A source says Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal will be part of the reason cited.
The official was unsure if the bond rating would be AA+ or AA.
blogs.abcnews.com
Awesome! And now the corporate media will neglect to tell the public that Standard & Poor's is downgrading us because the GOP refuses to raise taxes on the rich and corporations. Instead, it will be Obama's fault. Naturally.
In reality, I think most economic observers realize that a cuts only approach will not be enough to seriously address a long term deficit reduction solution, and despite the spin about "Job Creators" and "uncertainty" and the like, I think the folks at Standard & Poor's and within the Financial Industry understand that taking money out of the pockets of working class people by making their services less efficient is going to drain more money out of the working class, and since we are still a consumer based economy, if consumers have no money to spend businesses will continue to have no reason to hire, which will create an even slower economy and more unemployment in a downward spiral. At least, this is my guess, another hypothesis I have is that Standard & Poor's is corrupt as hell, and after their EPIC FAIL in the run up to the bank collapse of 07-08 they should STFU, and we should not take them seriously, but we can not choose the banksters we'd like to have, we have to deal with the ones we are stuck with, and I think there is a real possibility that the Big 3 credit ratings agencies are now pulling their own hostage demands, wherein they can now dictate and demand that DC spend even more focus on deficit reduction instead of anything else in the pursuit of divine austerity.
But all speculation aside, I'd like to say Congratulations to the Republican Party. You've officially managed to not only stop any recovery during Obama's first term, but you've also crippled the United States of America's economy despite only controlling the House of Representatives and half of our state Governments. Bravo, boys. I didn't think you had it in you to be this fucking ridiculous, but now the world doesn't think America can get it's shit straight because the GOP insists on more of the failed policies that created this disaster in the first place, like tax cuts for the rich, wars that never end, and destroying the working class that drives our economy. Take a bow, Republican Party, we couldn't have done it without you.
And now that you successfully managed to fuck things up for everyone with even the limited power you were given, we all have the Republican Party to thank for it.
FAIL
Thank the gods my laptop has a useful button for just such an occasion.
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