[...] Cory Booker! Whatever would g...
Did White House threaten Cory Booker for criticizing Obama’s attack ad? « Full Metal Patriot on Obama threatens to withhold Social Security checks despite sufficient funds [UPDATED] Social Security Chief Actuary exposes Obama deception
S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for first time ever
*** BUMPED***
Unfortunately, we now have another reason the Obama presidency is historic.
For the first time in history, the United States’ credit rating has been downgraded by Standard & Poor’s. This is what happens when an inexperienced chief executive stubbornly refuses to make serious spending cuts. And so, America gets another heaping mouthful of Hopenchange while Obama celebrates a lavish birthday celebration.
The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor’s on Friday in an unprecedented reversal of fortune for the world’s largest economy.
S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government’s budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the American government, companies and consumers.
“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,” S&P said in a statement.
The decision follows a fierce political battle in Congress over cutting spending and raising taxes to reduce the government’s debt burden and allow its statutory borrowing limit to be raised.
On August 2, President Barack Obama signed legislation designed to reduce the fiscal deficit by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. But that was well short of the $4 trillion in savings S&P had called for as a good “down payment” on fixing America’s finances.
The White House maintained silence in the immediate aftermath of S&P downgrade.
Gee, ya think? Of course the Obama administration is not going to mouth off just yet. They’ll have to do some focus group testing on the excuses they’ll be using to blame their failures on Bush and Congressional Republicans.
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain responded to America’s credit downgrade and made several good points in the following statement:
On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner promised that America faced “no risk” of a credit downgrading. Less than six months later, he is proven shamefully wrong. As I have feared for months, the S&P has chosen to downgrade America’s credit rating from AAA, which we have always enjoyed, to AA+.
Perhaps this is because the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats never once demonstrated a willingness to propose its own ideas for meaningful spending cuts, something credit agencies signaled were necessary to redeem America’s financial standing in the world.
As a corporate executive, I’ve rescued companies from the brink of bankruptcy and returned them to profitability. That involved balancing budgets or even creating them in the first place, something that the Democratic leadership in Congress hasn’t done for 828 days. If I couldn’t run companies without budgets, how can the government?
I also had to make tough budgetary cuts to save companies. Leadership is about doing what’s right, even when it’s difficult. But somehow, that sort of idea was never floated among those within the Obama Administration.
Now, Americans are fearful for their retirements and for their children’s educational savings. This is a country known for dreamers and innovators, for thinkers and doers. And now, we are a nation living in fear.
This is a sad day for America. Such a rating is unfitting of the greatest and most prosperous nation the world has ever known. And such a weak leader is, as well.
Mr. Cain has actually rescued and run many businesses, we would do well to listen to what he has to say.
We currently borrow $.44 of every federal dollar spent. We already have $14.5 trillion in debt and, after last week’s agreement, more rampant spending will skyrocket to over $22 trillion. What Bush started, Obama has quadrupled. Under Obama’s watch, spending has increased a staggering 20% (almost entirely on entitlements), and now he has the gall to say it would be cruel and heartless to cut the budget by 20%. We cannot sustain his Keynesian madness!
If President Obama and the Democrat Party hadn’t blocked the GOP’s Cut, Cap, & Balance plan, America would still have our AAA rating.
How much more must America’s economy fail before We The People throw these incompetent imbeciles out of office? In addiction parlance, this credit downgrade should be our rock-bottom moment. It’s time for an intervention with our Washington addict.
—
As if this wasn’t bad enough, today we hear that the Obama economy is also breaking records for the number of Americans on food stamps.
In rough numbers, take the entire populations of Texas and New York — number two and three in population, respectively — and put them on food stamps. Well, welcome to America in 2011.
Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
The number of Americans using the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — more commonly referred to as food stamps — shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That’s up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.
—
UPDATE: Apparently, Tea Party “terrorists” have taken over China. (h/t: Instapundit)
China demands U.S. ‘live within its means’
China called on the United States to “cure its addiction to debts” and “learn to live within its means” in a searing commentary published Saturday by the official New China News Agency in response to Standard & Poor’s historic downgrading of the U.S. government’s credit rating a day earlier.
China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. federal debt, blamed “short-sighted political wrangling in Washington” for creating the current financial morass that now threatens to undermine the global economy.
“China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets,” the commentary said.
“If no substantial cuts were made to the U.S. gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs, the downgrade would prove to be only a prelude to more devastating credit rating cuts, which will further roil the global financial markets all along the way,” it continued.
“Dagong Global, a fledgling Chinese rating agency, degraded the U.S. treasury bonds late last year, yet its move was met then with a sense of arrogance and cynicism from some Western commentators” the New China News Agency’s Saturday editorial said. “Now S&P has proved what its Chinese counterpart has done is nothing but telling the global investors the ugly truth.”
It’s pretty sad when a Socialist gets schooled in fiscal responsibility by a bunch of Communists.
Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
[...] S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for first time ever [...]