S&P bond rater: It’s the debt, stupid

Hot Air ^ | August 7, 2011 | ED MORRISSEY

[TennTuxedo]

What caused the United States to lose its AAA rating for the first time in 94 years, a rating that withstood two world wars, the Great Depression and (most of) the Great Recession, and a costly military buildup that bankrupted and demolished our Cold War foe, the Soviet Union, without a direct shot fired? Was it the dastardly Tea Party, with its demands for fiscal sanity and a solution to an oncoming tsunami of entitlement liabilities? According to the man who rates sovereign debt for the agency that downgraded the US, not really:

[TennTuxedo]

David Beers of Standard & Poor's validates tea party and the Republicans in the House of Representatives for their "Cut, Cap, & Balance" bill that they passed, only to be voted down by the Democrats in the Senate. Obama also promised to veto this bill if it came to his desk.

[Sundog]

White House already blamed the Tea Party for the downgrade because they didn’t cave quick enough.

[Vaquero]

zer0 p!sses away trillions and it is our fault for the US credit score:

[devolve]

[whitedog57]

Look at the massive increases in debt under Obama. You can see S&P’s point.

Http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com

Debt and spending totally unsustainable.

Look at Medicaid as a % of GDP!!!!!!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Barry and his commie ‘RATS need to listen to the Tea Party! KNOCK OFF THE SPENDING MORONS!

[_a_0_0_]

It all depends on what you mean by "increase." From the article you cite:

Here is the CBO forecast of debt to GDP. Treasury uses the CBO baseline. According to the CBO extended baseline, we will be at 75% to infinity and beyond! So while high, the debt to GDP ratio is stable. According to the CBO, that is.

But the CBO also publishes an alternative scenario which is shown in chart as the dashed line. The S&P forecasts are closer to the alternative scenario than the baseline projection.

[Jack Hydrazine]

It’s not just the debt that is the problem. After WWII we have encouraged our manufacturing sector to move overseas because of high taxes and excessive regulation.

We discourage wealth creation in this country and as a result we have to borrow the money that would have been taxed if manufacturing had stayed here.

Then throw in the devaluation of the dollar.

Unless we reform the tax system,our leviathan of bureaucracies and get away from using the Keynesian economic model for our country we can just forget about improving the situation.

[petercooper]

bttt

[ex-snook]

What caused the United States to lose its AAA rating for the first time in 94 years, a rating that withstood two world wars, the Great Depression and (most of) the Great Recession, and a costly military buildup that bankrupted and demolished our Cold War foe, the Soviet Union, without a direct shot fired?

---

All of the above plus a couple of wars currently, a few Wall Street bailouts and a job as world policeman are still ringing up the debt clock.

[MNJohnnie]

Federal Deficit as % of GDP when Bush left office, 69%.

Federal Deficit as % of GDP this year under 0. 97%

Sorry but this habitual regurgitation of the "Bush's fault" Democrat party talking point is completely at odds with the facts.