S&P Cites Tea Party’s, ‘Political Brinkmanship,’ in Downgrading U.S. Rating

[Dad Infinitum]

Jon Ponder | Aug. 6, 2011

In explaining why it was lowering the U.S. credit rating late on Friday, Standard & Poor’s singled out tea party obstructionism on the economy:

“The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed,” said S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies.

“The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.”

“Brinkmanship” is putting it politely, of course. A better description is economic terrorism or political extortion.

...

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 percent and consumer price inflation near 2 percent annually over the decade.

For weeks in the lead up to the Aug. 2 deadline for raising the debt ceiling, tea partyists in Congress made it clear that if they did not get their way — if the deal was based entire only on cuts to programs and if it were to include new revenue of any sort — they would vote against the deal and force the United States into default.

Worse, these tea baggers flatly denied that putting the government into default would have any negative consequences.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2011/08/06/sp-cites-tea-partys-extortion-politics-in-credit-rating-downgrade/">More

[FarLeftFist]

1. I will CONSTANTLY K&R any threads blaming the downgrade on the Tea-Potty

Because the country could always use more truthiness!

[elleng]

2. Yes. Thanks

Has been posted elsewhere; needs broad distribution.

However S+P didn't say 'Tea Party,' but rather 'repugs,' broader and even more devastating, imo.