OK, how about this part of Ryan’s speech that the guys at MSNBC are angry about :
“It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America. “
That’s Ryan, attacking Obama for the S&P downgrade of the U.S.’s credit rating in 2011.
However, the S&P actually said this in their statement to downgrade US debt:
http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245316529563
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“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, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade.”
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So, S&P assumed this because of Republicans’ unwillingness to enact any measures raising revenue, and they completely slammed House Republicans — including Paul Ryan — for doing so.
So, that’s MSNBC’s spin on things. How do we respond to that?
If you're serious, and I don't think you are, we respond by saying we don't argue with imbeciles because soon we begin to look like imbeciles ourselves.