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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: research1234 who wrote (168183)8/7/2011 4:19:27 PM
From: longnshort  Respond to of 543695
 
IS S&P is a ‘terrorist’ organization?
Posted August 5, 2011 at 10:06 pm by Meredith Jessup America, we’ve officially been downgradedanother historic first for the Obama administration!


Apparently Standard & Poor’s has been infiltrated by those “terrorist” tea partiers who demand we get our national debt and spending under control.

Knowing that the hammer was likely coming down this evening, President Obama still chose to skedaddle to Camp David and Congress is just so conveniently enjoying August recess out of D.C.

Let’s be honest, though. With all of our debt and out-of-control spending, who didn’t see something like this coming? Oh, that’s right — our very own Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner. Just three months ago, Geither insisted there was virtually “no risk” of the U.S. losing its AAA credit rating:

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

In response to the threat of a downgrade, the White House today chose to attack S&P as “amateur hour” with fuzzy math. S&P promised to double check their figures and obviously came to the same conclusion: the U.S. has bitten off way more than it can chew. But even after the official announcement this evening, Obama administration officials are insisting it’s S&P who is wrong.

Isn’t it funny that Obama warned just one week ago that the U.S. could be downgraded if the GOP didn’t “compromise,” but now after the debt deal has been passed and we’ve been downgraded, suddenly the credit agencies don’t seem to matter so much to the administration?

Barely five minutes after the AP broke the news of our fall from coveted trip-aces titan to whimpy AA+, the liberal hackisphere was pointing the finger at Republicans’ refusal to increase taxes. Washington Post’s Ezra Klein immediately blamed congressional Republicans:




Just minutes later, however, Klein insisted that the burden falls on all of us — a true notion on the surface, however I can’t help but think that if the Senate and White House were currently controlled by Republicans, there would be no sharing of blame.

Instead, what seems more likely is that if conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint had gotten their way with deeper spending cuts, we might not have been downgraded. David Freddoso notes:

DeMint predicted ahead of time that none of the debt deals on the table except for “Cut, Cap and Balance” would prevent a downgrade. He has been vindicated.

The bond-rating houses kept saying all along that they weren’t worried about the debt ceiling not being increased. Rather, they were worried about the long-term prospects of the U.S. government paying back $15-plus trillion, which is where our national debt (both publicly held and obligated to trust funds) will be shortly.

Because last weekend‘s deal didn’t cut spending deeply enough, S&P has just downgraded us. We’ll see just how disastrous this becomes — some are arguing it’s not such a big deal — but consider this the market’s revenge for TARP and the stimulus package. You run up the debt, Mr. President, you lose your good credit.

Tonight it looks like Obama wasn’t the only one anticipating this bad news. Let Freedom Ring already has a website titled TheObamaDowngrade.com up and running:





To: research1234 who wrote (168183)8/7/2011 4:58:48 PM
From: mistermj  Respond to of 543695
 
It only gets worse as the newer analysis unfolds. Are you suggesting that something has changed?

Spending Drives Historic Debt

The CBO baseline contains two important messages. First, Washington is accumulating debt at an unsustainable rate. After the debt slowly grew to $5.8 trillion through 2008, the more realistic baseline shows the federal government adding an astonishing $19.1 trillion in new debt between 2009 and 2021—$140,000 per household over those 13 years.




Annual budget deficits would never drop below $1 trillion, as the debt is now projected to reach 100 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020—and continue growing thereafter. This steep rise in debt would eventually become too large for global capital markets to absorb, potentially triggering a financial crisis, an interest rate spike, and gigantic tax increases.