By Vyan Sun Aug 07, 2011 Original Article
Well, looks like the Tea Party has accomplished their primary mission - Destroying America's Credit Rating -- and correctly they are being blamed for it, as they should , starting today with Senator John Kerry on Meet the Press.
Kerry: I believe without question, this is the Tea Party Downgrade. I think this is one of most telling important moments in our history, right now. What we need is a Washington that stops this bickering, that stops these hard positions. Barack Obama put a $4.7 Trillion Deal on this table, three time he was refused that deal because there were some people in the Republican Party, and Mitch McConnell even admitted this, who wanted to default. He said there were some people in his party who were willing to shoot the hostage, in the end they found that the hostage was worth ransoming
Well said, Sir.
Kerry is echoed by the National Journal.
The National Journal takes a close look at the S&P decision to downgrade U.S. credit. The conclusion: “It based it on the political game of chicken over the debt ceiling, a game that Republicans initiated and pushed to the limit, and on a growing gloom about the partisan deadlock. Part of S&P’s gloom, moreover, stemmed explicitly from what a new assessment of the GOP’s ability to block any and all tax increases.”
Even more than the National Journal, or Kerry comments what the S&P have said themselves made the cause of this downgrade directly and absolutely clear.
[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. [...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.
[...]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.
It couldn't be much clearer, S&P Downgraded America's Credit because of the Political Intransigence (Cantor walking out when Revenues were put on the table, Beohner walking out when Revenues were put on the table) leading to a Lack of Revenues and continued extension of Tax Cuts we can't afford.
They've said quite explicitly they would restore our AAA stabilize our rating if The Bush Tax Cuts are allowed to Expire in 2013.
– 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. Our revised upside scenario–which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the ‘AA+’ long-term rating being revised to stable–retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating. In this scenario, we project that the net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021.
S&P wants the Bush Cuts to Expire, and if they do we get our Credit Rating Back - how's that for Hostage Taking?
In the upcoming August Town Hall's, every Congressperson, particularly those in the GOP should be asked - why was any of this phony "Debt Crisis" necessarily when the last two times America has a Budget Surplus (under {President's Clinton and Eisenhower) cuts like this weren't on the table and Taxes were Higher?
During both of those periods America's Economy was amazingly healthy, under Clinton we created 22 Million Jobs and under Eisenhower the top marginal tax rate was 91%!
Why exactly can't we just do that again? More Here
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