I can't tell if Standard and Poor's is run by children or Republicans. It's one or the other.
They, along with the other credit rating agencies, seem to be following the GOP plan to a T. We simply "must" cut $4 trillion or else S&P will ruin the US's credit rating forever. Funny, I don't recall ever seeing S&P's election certificate. But just as troubling as S&P's attempt at a financial coup d'etat is their lockstep embrace of the Republican side of these negotiations. Though in all fairness to S&P, they're also embracing the President's position (which is still the Republican position) - that we simply must cut $4 trillion, to hell with the consequences on the anemic recovery.
I'm simply not entirely comfortable with some kid on Wall Street, who has no political sense whatsoever, deciding fiscal policy for the United States for the next decade, based on his pants-wetting assessment of how scary Washington politics is. If S&P is so rattled about the bickering over raising the debt limit, then they shouldn't be rewarding that bickering by embracing the very thing the bickerers want, massive cuts. S&P could have simply said "pass a permanent debt increase, taking it out of congress' hands forever," but they didn't. S&P isn't trying to solve the bickering, they're not worried about the debt limit, they're embracing GOP economic theory and trying to shove it down Washington's, and America's, throat by financial fiat.
From National Journal:
GRAND BARGAIN MAY BE NEEDED TO AVOID ECONOMIC CALAMITY. Lawmakers’ bickering on the debt limit has so rattled investors that now, to pull the American economy back from the brink, they may need to execute a bipartisan “grand bargain” of a size that once seemed unfathomable, at a speed that appears near-impossible. The credit ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has indicated that it has so lost faith in Washington’s ability to tackle big problems – because of the difficulty in solving such a simple one as how to avoid default – that simply raising the debt limit won’t be enough to spare the United States from what would be an earth-shaking downgrade of its credit rating. Instead, the agency insists that lawmakers must agree to a $4 trillion package of deficit reduction, at least, as part of the debt-ceiling deal or soon thereafter.PS I dont' recall S&P ever registering as federal lobbyists. Someone should file a complaint against them.
UPDATE: Read more about how the man-children at S&P triggered the entire financial crisis.
