Geithner 4/2011: “No Risk” U.S. Will Lose AAA Credit Rating – 8/2011: Standard and Poor’s Lowers America’s Long-Term Rating To ‘AA+’ – Longterm Outlook Negative (With Updates)

A synopsis of S & P’s analysis:

• 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 of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
• Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon.
• The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to ‘AA’ within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

You can read their full report at the link.

Turbo Tax-Timmy said there was no chance that would happen just a few months ago:

The Hill reported  04/19/11 10:33 AM ET:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Tuesday there is “no risk” the U.S. will lose its top credit rating amid a new analysis that revised its outlook on American debt to “negative.”

Geithner took to the airwaves of financial news networks to push back against a report Monday by Standard & Poor’s that lowered its outlook on U.S. debt to “negative,” reflecting political uncertainty over whether lawmakers will reach an agreement to address long-term debt.

There is no chance that the U.S. will lose its top credit rating, Geithner said, forcefully disputing the notion that S&P or other ratings services might downgrade U.S. bonds from their current AAA rating.

“No risk of that, no risk,” Geithner said on the Fox Business Network.

It should be noted that Republicans always were willing to “increase revenues” by closing tax loopholes etc, but the tax hikes Dems wanted to put on the $200,000-$250,000 club, AKA, small businesses, AKA job producers, killed the deal.

As Cantor explained in the The Wall Street Journal, today:

Somewhat surprisingly, Mr. Cantor was in fact prepared to bargain on about $20 billion in higher taxes on “the shiny balls of the millionaires, billionaires, jet owners and oil companies” that Mr. Obama so often mentioned in public. “If they wanted to be able to claim the win on that,” Mr. Cantor says, he wanted net revenue neutrality in return, by lowering the corporate income tax rate or perhaps enacting an even larger tax reform. In effect, he was calling Mr. Obama’s bluff on “cheap politics.”

In private, however, the debate always returned to the status of the top marginal rate for individuals earning over $200,000 and $250,000 for couples—aka the Bush tax cuts for people who do not own private aircraft. Mr. Cantor argued that some large portion of the income that flows through the top bracket comes from “pass-through entities”—that is, businesses—and “to me, that strikes at the core of what I believe should be the policy, and that is to provide incentives for entrepreneurs to grow.”

By contrast, he says, “Never was there ever an underlying economic argument” from Democrats. “It was all about social justice. Honestly, one of them said to me, ‘Some people just make too much money.'”

Make no mistake. The US lost its AAA credit rating because of the Marxist thinking on Capital Hill, and in the White House.

Hot Air reported, last night:

The GOP was planning to push their message for a balanced-budget amendment during the August recess. The downgrade will help that effort, but I wonder after this whether we’ll have an August recess after all. Is Congress really going to sit back for another four weeks while the economy tries to cope with this news?

UPDATE:

Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama: Downgrade Tim Geithner! Tell him he must go NOW.

Sign the petition: Time to Fire Timothy Geithner

The Market Ticket:And So It Begins…..

Mediaite: Neil Cavuto Challenges Rep. Kucinich On The Economy: ‘Why Are [Corporations] Responsible And Not You Guys?’

Video at link.

Nile Gardiner: America’s debt downgrade is a damning indictment of President Obama’s Big Government disaster:

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the United States has embarked on the most ambitious failed experiment in Washington meddling in US history. Huge increases in government spending, massive federal bailouts, growing regulations on businesses, thinly veiled protectionism, and the launch of a vastly expensive and deeply unpopular health care reform plan, have all combined to instill fear and uncertainty in the markets. Free enterprise has taken a backseat to continental European-style interventionism, as an intensely ideological left wing administration has sought to dramatically increase the role of the state in shaping the US economy. The end result has been a dramatic fall in economic freedom, sluggish growth, poor consumer confidence, high unemployment, a collapsing housing market, and an overall decline in US prosperity, with more than 45 million Americans now reliant on food stamps – that’s over one seventh of the entire country.

18 Countries with a higher credit rating than the United States:

Country	Rating	Outlook	Date	Ref.
Australia	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Austria	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Canada	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Denmark	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Finland	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
France	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Germany	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Guernsey	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Hong Kong	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Isle of Man	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Liechtenstein	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Luxembourg	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Netherlands	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Norway	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Singapore	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Sweden	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Swiss Confederation	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
United Kingdom	AAA	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
Belgium	AA+	Negative	Jul 2011	[2][3]
New Zealand	AA+	Stable	Jul 2011	[2][3]
United States of America	AA+	Negative	Aug 2011	[4][5]

MORE:

Philip Klein, Washington Examiner: Obama won’t escape blame for credit downgrade

When Obama came into office, he argued that we needed deficit spending to boost the economy, so he passed a $800 billion stimulus package. Then, in one of his first supposed pivots to the deficit, he convened a ‘fiscal responsibility summit’ in February 2009. But that actually turned out to be part of a different pivot altogether. It was during that summit that then White House Budget Director Peter Orszag declared, “health care reform is entitlement reform.”

And so, for the next 13 months, Obama spent all of his energies trying to get health care legislation across the finish line. The end product was a plan that, according to both the Congressional Budget Office and actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, did not bend the health care cost curve down.  Let’s even set aside the argument over the accounting gimmicks that were employed to obtain a CBO score that showed modest deficit reduction. The reality is this: the law used money raised through tax hikes and Medicare cuts that otherwise would have been available for deficit reduction, to instead expand Medicaid by 18 million beneficiaries and create a massive new health care entitlement.

Tine Korbe, Hot Air: Huckabee: Trump should replace Geithner

Ed made the case this morning as to why Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner must go (and he should!), but, so far, little discussion has focused on who his successor should be. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee decided to start that ball rolling with a sensational suggestion. Political Ticker reports:

Amid calls by the GOP for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s resignation, one Republican is offering an unorthodox choice for a potential replacement.

“Ask Donald Trump to be Treasury secretary,” Mike Huckabee said on Fox News Channel.

The former Arkansas governor elaborated: “Have Donald Trump take the job for 90 days. It’s a game changer.”

Linked by Michelle Malkin, The TrogloPundit, Right Wing News, and  All American Blogger, thanks!

Hat tips: Charles B. and Brian B.