Thank The Teabaggers For The Lower U.S. Credit Rating

The United States government has maintained the top credit rating for many decades now with all of the credit-rating agencies -- a AAA+ rating. But those days are now over, at least for a while. Standard & Poors has lowered the government's credit rating to AA+, a move that could eventually result in the government having to pay more for the money they borrow (which would have a ripple effect throughout the economy, raising interest rates for everyone).

Of course all of the Republican candidates for the presidency immediately jumped to blame President Obama for the lowered credit rating. That's hogwash! They are just trying to keep their fellow party members in Congress from getting the blame -- a blame that they richly deserve.

The folks at S & P said there were two reasons for lowering the government credit rating. First was the turning of the nation's debt ceiling into a political football, with many Republicans threatening to throw the nation into default if they didn't get the political victories they wanted (showing that they valued their ideology more than the nation's economic health).

The second reason was the lack of any type of revenue enhancement (taxes) -- especially the elimination of the disastrous Bush tax cuts for the rich (which are responsible for a large chunk of the budget deficit). For S & P, the failure to include raising taxes meant the Congress (especially Republicans) were not really serious about bringing down the deficit and the national debt. Here is what S & P said:

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

[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

[...]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.

That makes it pretty clear that they seem to think the Republicans are to blame. And it is the teabagger base that has pressured the Republicans to be so intransigent in their refusal to raise taxes on the rich and their willingness to play political games with the creditworthiness of the government and the well-being of the national economy. When a Wall Street firm places the blame on the Republicans, you know it has to be true (because Wall Street loves the Republican Party).

And it's not just Standard & Poors that thinks the Republicans screwed up in the debt ceiling debate. Most polls, including a new survey by Quinnipiac University Poll (taken July 5-11 of 2,311 registered voters with a margin of error of only 2 points), show that people blame the Republicans more for the ridiculous debt ceiling debate than the president -- by a 48% to 34% margin. The poll also showed that 67% of those polled thought taxes should be raised on the wealthy and corporations, while only 25% opposed that.

It looks like the teabaggers have forced their idiot congressmen out on a weak limb. Hopefully the voters will saw that limb off in the next election. We need people in Congress that care more for the country than their own ideology. The teabaggers believe ideology is more important, and that is why they must accept the blame for the bad debt deal and the down-grading of U.S. Credit.