S&P: Republicans suck, this is mostly their fault

[LuckyTheDog]

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. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the omprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.

<snip>

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...


More: http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3DUS_Downgraded_AA%2B.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1243942957443&blobheadervalue3=UTF-8

[flamingdem]

1. Don't trust a word out of S&P last week they were demanding minimum 4 Trillion in cuts

now we find out they can't do basic math, morans!

[LuckyTheDog]

3. The were demanding $4 trillion in deficit reduction

They did not take a position on how to get there.

[flamingdem]

4. We know what they meant and that number was leverage to force cuts nt

[CakeGrrl]

2. Rec for S&P knowing where the blame lies. -nt

[rdking647]

5. the fed has answered s&p

by saying fo fuck yourselves
Full release:

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
National Credit Union Administration
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Agencies Issue Guidance on Federal Debt

Earlier today, Standard & Poor’s rating agency lowered the long-term rating of the U.S. government and federal agencies from AAA to AA+. With regard to this action, the federal banking agencies are providing the following guidance to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and bank and savings and loan holding companies (collectively, banking organizations)

For risk-based capital purposes, the risk weights for Treasury securities and other securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government, government agencies, and government-sponsored entities will not change. The treatment of Treasury securities and other securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government, government agencies, and government-sponsored entities under other federal banking agency regulations, including, for example, the Federal Reserve Board’s Regulation W, will also be unaffected.

[flamingdem]

7. S&P tried to be kingmakers to kiss repuke boss ass, now they are delegitimized

ciao bella

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. They blame the downgrade on the failure of the REPUBLICANS...

to agree to raise taxes (read: to eliminate the Bush tax cuts). It's in their press release. That's what "resist any measure to raise revenues" means. Plain English.

[flamingdem]

9. Careful, they have to look nonpartisan because they certainly ARE nt

[flamingdem]

10. Also: note that Romney didn't waste a second in blaming Obama for this

[flamingdem]

6. Careful, they are attempting to look legit, they've been caught out as incompetent

and they are purely supporting Republican aims.