US Faces Another Downgrade Without Budget Plan

The U.S., lacking a plan to contain $1 trillion deficits, faces the prospect of another rating cut in six to 24 months depending on the outcome of November elections, according to John Chambers of Standard & Poor’s.

America has had an AA-plus rating with a negative outlook since Aug. 5 when the New York-based unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. stripped the nation of its AAA ranking for the first time, citing the government’s failure to agree on a path to reduce deficits.

The U.S. has a one-in-three chance of another downgrade, Chamber said during a recent S&P sponsored Webcast.

“What the U.S. needs is not so much a short-term fiscal tightening, but it has to have a credible medium-term fiscal plan,” said Chambers, managing director of sovereign ratings. “That is going to have to say something about entitlements, and that is probably going to have to say something about revenues.”

Bond investors ignored the downgrade, driving Treasury yields to the lowest levels in history, amid concern the U.S. economy was stalling and as Europe’s debt crisis intensified.

Treasurys have returned 3.9 percent since the rating cut and gained 9.8 percent last year, the debt’s best performance since 2008, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.

“I don’t think anything is going to happen between now and the election in November,” Chambers said.

S&P said in August that political brinkmanship over increasing the government’s debt ceiling year showed the U.S. is becoming “less stable, less effective and less predictable” as the Treasury almost reached its borrowing limit before the government reached a compromise.

The “political brinkmanship hasn’t gone away,” Chambers said. “That simply doesn’t happen in other AAA economies.”

Find the article at S&P's Chambers Warns: US Faces Another Downgrade Without Budget Plan

Thoughtsjustoffcenter: You have a budget, I have a budget, why doesn't congress think they need a budget? Yes, we break our weekly, monthly and sometimes yearly budgets from time-to-time, but we all know the money has to be paid/put back at some time or another. Otherwise we would all be bankrupt. Is this what we want our current or future to be - a nation in bankruptcy? I don't and I hope you don't. We have to live within our means - why can't the nation? Do you job Mr. President, Mr./Mrs,/Ms. Senators and Representatives.
 Senator. congress

Remember January 03, 2007

This is just a history lesson. It is history and nothing can change it. Both parties need to cut expenses, both parties have some blame, but this is truly what happened and Americans need to wake up and take our country back in 2012!!

REMEMBER JAN. 3, 2007

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was January 3rd 2007, the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, the start of the 110th Congress. The Democratic Party gained a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is “Bush’s Fault,” think about this:

January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:

• The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
• The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
• The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
• George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!

Remember that day…

January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.

The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!

THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5% GDP and 4.6% Unemployment…to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!

(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 times to stop Fannie & Freddie – starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy). Barney blocked it and called it a “Chicken Little Philosophy” (and the sky did fall!)

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie AND Freddie? OBAMA

And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especially BARNEY!!!!

So when someone tries to blame Bush…

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!

Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving the economy into the ditch.

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011.

In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. Bush should have vetoed every bill that came in front of his desk!

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period:

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is, “I inherited a deficit that I voted for,

And then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th, 2009.”