Standard & Poor's Downgrades New Jersey State Credit Outlook

  Coming soon to a Republican controlled state near you.

by  Hunter for Daily Kos

More bad news for New Jersey, and for Gov. Chris Christie:

The latest dose of bad news was delivered by Standard & Poor’s, which Tuesday lowered its credit outlook for New Jersey from stable to negative.

While Standard & Poor’s did not change the state’s AA- rating — one of the worst among the states — it warned the more drastic step of a lower rating loomed if Christie’s nearly 8 percent growth in revenue failed to materialize. [...]

"We revised the outlook to reflect our view of the risk of revenue assumptions we view as optimistic, continued reliance on one-time measures to offset revenue shortfalls, and longer-term growing expenditure pressures," John Sugden, a credit analyst for Standard & Poor’s, said.

The optimistic revenue assumptions part is a direct reference to Christie's implausible budget assumptions, especially as it relates to his insistence that only further tax cuts can possibly cause the magical money unicorn to once again poop cash and rainbows across his great state. For Republicans, this was proof enough of Christie's seriousness to make him one of the keynote speakers at their recent convention.

Which, as it turns out, seems to be a trend. After all, one of the people most responsible for the national credit downgrade was Paul Ryan and his merry band of fellow fiscal anarchists—and for his own valiant attempts in the field of completely implausible budget numbers, he was rewarded with the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket.

In the current Republican Party, gross fiscal incompetence has become a big selling point. And if your incompetence results in actual, real-world economic damage, you'll be considered as leadership material.

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,Standard & Poor's,New Jersey,Republicans,Debt,Current Events,The Economy

Obama Has Lead With Small Business Owners

  Yep, another category that Mitt Romney falls behind in is the small business group. It would appear that the Romney campaign’s  “ you didn’t build that “ smear against President Obama isn’t gaining any traction with those business owners as they had hoped.

  New Polling;

Nearly half of small business owners (47 percent) plan to vote for a second term for the president, compared to 39 percent who plan to vote for Mitt Romney, according to a new poll conducted by the George Washington University School of Political Management and Thumbtack.com. Even more importantly, perhaps, the president is perceived as more supportive of small companies by the most coveted group of voters — independents.

  It was only a month ago that a different poll had Mitt Romney with a pretty comfortable lead over Obama with main street businesses. The Romney people have thus far managed to screw up everything that they touch and that will not change any time soon.

  Also;

Respondents to the Thumbtack-GWU poll, more than 95 percent of whom had 10 or fewer employees, listed the economy, and especially unemployment and the job market, as their top concern, ahead of partisanship. Just 3 percent said taxes were their top issue.   

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Small Business,The Economy,Mitt Romney,Polling,Curent Events,2012 Elections