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Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a staunch fiscal conservative and Tea Party favorite, said he is certain that the United States will face another credit downgrade. "S&P's downgrade on us was right, matter of fact we're going to get another downgrade. I can tell you right now, you can have a great legal case for suing the rating agencies for not downgrading us again because we have not demonstrated the political will to solve the problems," said Coburn on CBS's midweek show "Face to Face," posted online Wednesday. The Oklahoma senator told CBS that he has "no doubt" that there will...

The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews. The investigation began before Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that has surrounded that action. Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned the agency’s secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found...

Together We Can Beat the Deficit We did it in the 1990s and we can do it again today. By PATTY MURRAY, MAX BAUCUS AND JOHN KERRY Our country has long been a beacon of light in the world because the American people always come together when times are tough. Over the past few months, in debating the debt ceiling and deficit reduction, that light of common cause has appeared to flicker at times in our nation's capital. As appointees to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—12 members of Congress charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over...

Reporting from Decorah, Iowa— In the clearest expression yet of his 2012 reelection strategy, President Obama said he would send a jobs package to Congress next month, ask lawmakers to pass it, and campaign against them if they refused. Obama made the declaration in a town-hall-style meeting in Iowa on Monday night. He is facing criticism for not advancing a bold strategy to bolster job growth and his reelection prospects. "I'll be putting forward a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control the deficit," Obama said on the first day of his three-day Midwest...

Moody's Analytics on Monday lowered its outlook for growth in the U.S. economy this year and next, saying it sees "significantly weaker" prospects for the economy than just a month ago as the country struggles to avoid another recession. The report ...cites the recent political wrangling over the U.S. debt ceiling and the revived debt crisis in Europe as leading factors in the bleaker economic picture. "The odds of a renewed recession over the next 12 months, already one in three, will increase if stock prices continue to fall

CHARLESTON, S.C. and AMES, Iowa -- Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his bid for the 2012 Republican nomination here Saturday with a speech grounded in attacks on President Obama for "downgrading" America. "I declare to you today as a candidate for President of the United States," Perry told a friendly crowd in South Carolina, host to the nation's third presidential primary. ... As Perry pointed out in his speech, 40 percent of the nation's new jobs since June 2009 have been created in Texas. "It's time to get America working again," Perry said, arguing that "Recovery is a meaningless word...

Some Democratic members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, tasked with identifying $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, have become the subject of criticism, but their appointments were only finalized Thursday. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, and Reps. James Clyburn of South Carolina and Xavier Becerra of California are already being targeted for circumstances that could compromise their abilities to negotiate. Becerra, for example, wasted no time before using his appointment as a fundraising tool for his own campaign.

Rep. Xavier Becerra — or, to be more precise, lobbyists working on his behalf — wasted no time Thursday capitalizing on the California congressman’s appointment to the congressional super committee. A little over two hours after Becerra was named to the powerful panel, Investment Company Institute’s Jim Hart sent out an email encouraging attendance for the trade group’s upcoming $1,500 per person fundraiser based on Becerra’s new found status as one of the elite 12. “We will host an event for Congressman Xavier Becerra, not only Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus but also who has just been named to...

WASHINGTON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Here is a look at some of the top donors to election campaigns for the 12 members of the U.S. Congress named to a deficit-fighting "super committee." Known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the panel is expected to be the most heavily lobbied body in Washington ahead of its Nov. 23 deadline for making recommendations on $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings. Unless specified, donations below combine members' campaign committees and leadership PACs (political action committees). Data is from www.opensecrets.org. SENATE DEMOCRATS Patty Murray of Washington state * Software giant Microsoft Corp...

The only way President Barack Obama can solve the nation’s economic woes is to adopt “common-sense” Reaganomics, the policy’s architect Arthur Laffer claims in an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview. Laffer said the White House called him in the spring and asked him to speak to Obama’s former Council of Economic Advisors’ chairman Austen Goolsbee – and he had told him exactly the same thing. “Reaganomics would fix any economy that’s in the doldrums,” Laffer said. “It’s not a magic sauce, it’s common sense. “You’ve got to get rid of all federal taxes in the extreme and replace them with a low-rate...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday he's naming Sen. Patty Murray to co-chair a powerful "super committee" charged with finding more than $1 trillion in deficit cuts this fall. Murray will be joined by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., on the panel, which was established last week by hard-fought legislation to increase the national debt.

Being a disciple of Saul Alinsky might not be so easy as it would appear. President Obama and his minions obviously can't decide whom to scapegoat for the nation's credit downgrade and our financial crisis. One thing is for sure: It's not in Barack Obama to accept personal responsibility for the consequences of his actions and policies. He still won't own this economy and the exploding spending spiral, reminding us at every turn that our problems are a result of what he "inherited" from President Bush. Instead of seeking to soothe the nation on word of the downgrade by Standard...

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., and his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., both blasted Tea Party critics on Monday for suggesting that the conservative movement with which they're both linked may have had something to do with America's recent credit downgrade by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's. The elder Paul, a longtime lawmaker, staunch libertarian, and presidential candidate, decried the allegations as an "attempt to scapegoat" Tea Party lawmakers. He pinned the downgrade on the Washington establishment. "This attempt to scapegoat folks who recognize that our debt is out of control and that we must change course should not be...

A familiar air of indecision preceded President Obama’s pep talk to the nation. The first draft of his schedule for Monday contained no plans to comment on the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s. Then the White House announced that he would speak at 1 p.m. A second update changed that to 1:30. At 1:52, Obama walked into the State Dining Room to read his statement. Judging from the market reaction, he should have stuck with his original instinct. “No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country,”...

In the coming days we’ll sort through the repercussions of S&P’s downgrade of our credit rating, including concerns about the impact a potential interest rate increase would have on our ability to service our suffocating $14.5 trillion debt. I’m surprised that so many people seem surprised by S&P’s decision. Weren’t people paying attention over the last year or so when we were getting warning after warning from various credit rating agencies that this was coming? I’ve been writing and speaking about it myself for quite some time.

It’s laugh-out-loud funny to hear the Obama administration’s all out assault on S&P’s math skills. According to the administration, if the downgrade in America’s credit rating is not the fault of the Tea Party (apparently for demanding the very spending cuts the political class’s refusal to make prompted the downgrade), it must be due to what the administration calls S&P’s “colossal” $2 trillion error — indicative, Treasury’s Turbo Tim Geithner told NBC News, of the rating agency’s “stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math.” It couldn’t possibly be President Obama’s outer-worldly spending spree, right? It couldn’t possibly...

Power Play White House: Downgrade Doesn’t Matter, Unless It’s The Tea Party’s Fault By Chris Stirewalt Published August 08, 2011 | FoxNews.com * Print * Email * Share * Comments * * * * Text Size Team Obama Downplays Downgrade, But Blames Tea Party Too “Look at the history of this – the fact of the matter is that this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade. The Tea Party brought us to the brink of a default.” -- David Axelrod, top political consultant to President Obama, in an appearance on “Face the Nation.” The decision by Standard and Poor’s to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Government-controlled Freddie Mac is asking for $1.5 billion in additional federal aid after posting a loss this spring. The mortgage giant says it lost $4.69 billion, or $1.44 cents per share, in April-June quarter. That takes into account $1.6 billion in dividends paid to the Treasury Department. It compares with a loss of $6 billion, or $1.85 per share, during the same quarter in 2010. The government rescued McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae in September 2008 after massive losses on risky mortgages threatened to topple them. Standard & Poor's cited the link to...

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Little is known about key details that led Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. debt late Friday, despite its outsized repurcussions. While the move knocking U.S. debt down a notch from the lofty AAA rating has exacerbated an already skittish stock market and drawn criticism from the White House, key details are a mystery. S&P doesn't say who, exactly, made the decision at the company; what kind of weight they gave U.S. politics versus ability to pay; or to what extent they felt pressured to downgrade the United States in response to criticism of its downgrades of...

It was about time the president weighed in with a statement about the U.S. credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s. And that’s not just because the reporters in the room were getting antsy after the president was 50 minutes late getting started. Rather, Obama’s press briefing Monday afternoon about the Standard & Poor’s downgrade came after a weekend in which the primary messaging strategy from the White House seemed to be excuses. Following a bizarre back and forth Friday evening in the news over whether the ratings agency got its math right—a “has it really come to this?” moment...