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The Obama administration attacked the credibility of the analysis underlying Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the United States' top credit rating on Friday, saying it had found a $2 trillion error. S&P was forced to remove the number from its analysis after Treasury officials discovered that the rating agency's estimates of the government's discretionary spending was $2 trillion too high, sources familiar with the discussions said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, in a dramatic reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy. S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about growing budget deficits. U.S. Treasuries, once undisputedly seen as the safest investment in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as the UK, Germany, France or Canada.

Standard & Poor’s took the unprecedented step of downgrading the U.S. government’s “AAA” sovereign credit rating Friday in a move that could send shock waves through global. The following is a press release from Standard & Poor’s: – We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ and affirmed the ‘A-1+’ short-term rating. – We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative. – The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in...

• We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating. • We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative. • 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. • More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time...

S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus. The credit agency said late Friday that it was making the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country's debt situation. U.S. Treasuries, once undisputedly seen as the safest investment in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France or Canada. The outlook on the new U.S. credit rating is negative, S&P said in a statement, a sign that another downgrade is possible in the next...

The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday in an unprecedented reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy. S&P cut the long-term US credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government's budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the US government, companies and consumers. "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,"...

Who do you think is most to blame for the US losing its stellar credit rating? 6.8% Congress 111 votes 18% Obama administration 295 votes 26.4% Republicans 433 votes 4.3% Democrats 71 votes 19.5% Tea party 320 votes 25% All of the above 410 votes

Why the Tea Party-friendly Republicans of the U.S. House own this epic humiliation On Friday night, after a swirl of rumors and conflicting news reports that will be grist for the Washington pundit mill for years to come, Standards & Poor downgraded the credit rating of the United States.

Two government officials tell ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value. Official reasons given, one official says, will be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling, and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction. A source says Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal will be part of the reason cited. The official was unsure if...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, in a dramatic reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy. S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about growing budget deficits. U.S. Treasuries, once undisputedly seen as the safest investment in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as the UK, Germany, France or Canada

A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value. Officials reasons given will be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling, and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction.

Chinese credit-rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. again downgraded U.S. sovereign debt Wednesday and warned of further downgrades, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.... Dagong cut U.S. Treasurys to A from A+, with a negative outlook, saying growth in U.S. debt is still outpacing revenue growth. The latest move followed a Dongang downgrade of U.S. debt from AA to A+ in November, citing the launch of the Federal Reserve's second round of quantitative easing. "The agency said the approval to raise the debt ceiling indicated that there will not be any positive changes in factors that will influence the...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Credit rating agency Moody's said Tuesday the United States will keep its sterling AAA credit rating for the time being, but lowered its outlook on U.S. debt to "negative."

(Reuters) - The United States' triple-A credit rating is likely to be affirmed by Moody's with a negative outlook, the ratings agency said on Friday, signaling that a downgrade would not come immediately, but possibly in the medium term.

A congressional panel is examining whether the Obama administration tried to unduly influence Standard & Poor's before the credit rater revised its outlook on the debt rating to negative. Randy Neugebauer, the Republican chairman of a House oversight panel, said on Wednesday his staff is probing whether Treasury tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P's news release announcing the negative outlook revision in April. "Our concern was if the administration was trying to influence this rating decision some -- above what would be a normal practice," Neugebauer told reporters after a hearing examining oversight of the credit...

Egan-Jones downgrades U.S. rating to AA+ from AAA -Small ratings agency unlikely to have market-moving implications, but comes amid possible downgrades from larger ratings agencies. -Egan-Jones cites rising debt-to-GDP ratio for downgrade rather than delay in raising the debt ceiling. By Andrew Ackerman and Mark Taylor Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Egan-Jones Ratings Co. over the weekend lowered its rating on U.S. debt, the ratings firm's president, Sean Egan, announced Monday.

Calm down. The US will not miss a coupon payment on its $14.3tn debt next Wednesday. A genuine default would be “Lehman on Steroids” in the words of Ex-Treasury secretary Larry Summers. Precisely for that reason President Obama will not pull the trigger, EVEN IF the debt ceiling talks break down in acrimony. Obama still has a clutch of cards to play, in extremis. As Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism argues, the White House can challenge the constitutionality of the debt ceiling in Congress. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution states that the “validity of the public debt of the...

Barack Obama has spent the last several weeks warning that a failure to raise the debt ceiling by the “drop-dead date” of August 2nd would cause a ruinous downgrade of Treasury bonds and an economic disaster for the US. However, the downgrade may come sooner than that, because the debt ceiling is actually a secondary condition to the ratings agencies. The problem, as they see it, is not that America can’t pay its debts next month, but that America has grown its debt to such a degree that we can’t pay them in the long run without serious restructuring of...

Senate Democrats' inclusion in their proposed debt package of $1 trillion in savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may not satisfy ratings agencies threatening a credit downgrade since the wars were expected to end with or without a debt deal. The budget gimmick is one that has been used by both parties. President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner had earlier considered employing it during discussions that have since broken down. Now Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid is using the trick in his $2.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan, according to aides. Boehner has not indicated where he would draw...

A lot of people assume that if the ratings agencies downgrade the credit rating of the United States, it will trigger a sell-off of Treasurys. Some even suppose that a sell-off would be automatically triggered by regulatory and fund charter requirements. Fortunately, this isn’t true. It’s very likely that a downgrade of the credit rating of the U.S. would trigger a sell-off, but it’s far from clear that investors would sell U.S. government debt. More likely the investors would sell risk assets—equities, high yield corporate bonds, mortgage securities—and actually buy U.S. government debt. What's certain is regulations won’t require most...