John Boehner Debt Ceiling Plan May Still Trigger S&P Downgrade: Report

[Hissyspit]

Source: Sam Stein / Huffington Post

John Boehner Debt Ceiling Plan May Still Trigger S&P Downgrade: Report

First Posted: 7/25/11 10:14 PM ET Updated: 7/25/11 11:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Minutes before House Speaker John Boehner delivered a prime-time address in which he framed his latest deficit-reduction deal as a silver bullet for the nation's economic uncertainty, reports surfaced that the plan being crafted by the Ohio Republican would potentially lead to a downgrading of the AAA credit rating of the United States.

In an address that immediately followed the president's own, Boehner argued that if the president were to merely sign into law his latest deficit-reduction bill -- which slashes more than a trillion dollars in spending before requiring a second tranche of cuts and a second vote -- "the 'crisis' atmosphere he has created will simply disappear."

It was a fairly bold selling of a plan that -- in terms of both the size of cuts and structural reforms -- fell far short of what the Speaker had been negotiating with the White House prior to those negotiations ending this weekend. It also was delivered with an unfortunate backdrop. Just minutes before Boehner spoke, CNN's Erin Burnett relayed word from her sources on Wall Street that the newest Republican plan would not satisfy the credit rating agencies, which have soured on the idea of a short-term solution to the debt ceiling debate. Rather, it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's approach (padded by counting the savings from the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq) that would calm their nerves.

"I think it is important to emphasize that most people think both of the plans are really Band-Aids and don't deal in any significant way with the spending and cost issues in the country," Burnett said. "The issue was that Speaker Boehner's plan does not cut enough spending right away. Harry Reid's plan would cut about $2.7 trillion. Just because it is bigger than Speaker Boehner's plan is really the reason the Boehner plan may still trigger a downgrade."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/25/john-boehner-debt-ceiling-plan_n_909276.html

[lonestarnot]

1. We are fucked.

[FreakinDJ]

3. you noticed

[Angry Dragon]

2. Who gives a damn what the S&P thinks

They are the same ones that gave good and super credit ratings to the junk stuff that caused the bank meltdown.
They have lost all credibility and should have been shut down and people arrested and fined heavily.

wall street and government are just two sides of the same coin.
it is hard to tell which place the people work they are so inter-twined

[kenny blankenship]

4. We should think of S&P, Moody's, Fitch et al like DIEBOLD. Not neutral parties

They are not unpolitical, impartial and dispassionate observers of our political economy. Not at all!

They are all crooks who are entwined, hand in glove, with the banksters they were supposed to be keeping honest during the real estate bubble (just to name the latest, most fraudulent bubble entailing systemic risk to the world's financial health, that they somehow ALL failed to notice developing). Like Arthur-Andersen in the case of Enron, they were supposed to be scrutinizing the balance sheets and business practices of the banks on behalf those firms' shareholders and bondholders. Instead they rubberstamped as "AAA" any derivative financial product equivalent of crack cocaine that their bankster buddies cooked up. They should be answering questions with a heat lamp shining in their eyes in some FBI or SEC "black" site, someplace. Now, instead, they are attacking the AAA rating of the United States of America - you better believe they have an inducement to engage in this warfare, just like they had some kind of interest in banks passing off trash CDOs tranches from subprime mortgages to pension funds and municipalities as though they were as good as US Treasury bonds. Mutual class interest in destroying the one force that could prosecute them for their crimes is the inducement I am sure they share with the banks - even though the leader of that force ISN'T prosecuting them and wasn't threatening to.

It was foolish for Obama to let them and the banksters go without prosecution because just look at how they repay a kindness.