Obama’s Clowning Achievement

Professor Jacobson of Legal Insurrection adamantly asserts that, “Democrats own the downgrade.  They fought Republicans and Tea Party supporters every step of the way, and forced a deal which was insufficient.  They played class warfare and race politics against arguments that we needed to drastically change our spending habits.”

Jammie Wearing Fool bluntly points to the screw job this president and his lock-step minions in the Congress did on our economy saying, “Heckuva job, Bammy. You've tanked the economy and now wrecked our credit rating. But don't let us interrupt your parties or golf.”

"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," Standard & Poors said. S&P had previously warned it would downgrade the credit rating if the cut didn't reach $4 trillion.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said S&P's call was the result of Washington's "out-of-control" spending which "now threatens to send destructive ripple effects across our credit markets."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the decision "reaffirms the need for a balanced approach of deficit reduction."

The unprecedented downgrade of the nation's AAA credit rating by a major ratings agency comes only fifteen months before the 2012 presidential election where the downgrade and the debt will be source of bitter political battles over spending cuts and tax reform.

S&P's assessment was tempered by a decision from Moody's Investors Service earlier this week that confirmed, for now, America’s AAA rating. Fitch Ratings said it is still reviewing the rating and will issue its opinion by the end of August.

Christina Romer, former Chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers seems to think we’re, “Pretty darned fucked.”