As expected and as I predicted at the small Tea Party rally July 28, 2011, America’s credit rating has been downgraded from AAA to AA+, with expectations that it might even sink further. We didn’t need to allow that to happen, but in today’s air of hyper-partisanship, party power being more important than the good of the country on both sides of the aisle, it’s what we received.
Our problem remains our ridiculous staggering debt, now with the limit approaching $16 Trillion. Our elected officials seem only able to address the deficit between what they spend and what is received in taxes, spending greatly outpacing tax receipts.
Seeing how our Congress can only spend, spend, spend, we have lost the AAA rating we have depended on. The S & P Report cites among their reasons, “We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process.”
The left immediately focuses on “raising revenues,” increasing taxes on the wealthy, and completely ignores “containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements.”
Instead of rolling up their sleeves and setting to actually fixing the problems, what do we once again see?
That’s it, blame a group of American people from all political persuasions who have let it be known they are fed up with business as usual and want our staggering debt dealt with. Lay it at the feet at the struggling citizen’s who are losing their homes, can’t find work and see that years of overspending and borrowing by politicians of both parties to cover it brought this one.
Politicians chimed in taking their shots as well.
Massachusetts Democrat Senator John ‘F’in Kerry, fresh from his call on the media to not give equal coverage to citizens identifying with the Tea Party went on Meet the Press Sunday morning and stated, “I believe this is, without question, the tea party downgrade.” I’m sure he felt that way too when he contracted construction of his multi-million dollar Yacht overseas and moored it out of state trying to avoid paying his fair share of nearly half a million dollars in taxes on it.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner came out blasting Standard & Poors for their downgrade claiming, “They’ve handled themselves very poorly. And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math.”
Howard Dean, former governor, presidential candidate and chair of the Democrat Party saw his opening too with, “Look, I think this Standard & Poor’s downgrade is a good thing, because I think it underlines the fact that you can’t [tackle the national debt] without raising revenues. The vast majority of the American people want us to raise revenues, particularly on all those gazillionaires that Republicans’ tax cuts mostly benefit. So let’s do the right thing. Let’s everybody put something into the pot.”
Leave it to Democrats to see any situation as a call for them to raise taxes. Dean also could not miss his chance to take a shot at American citizens too with his comment on the Tea Party, “they’ve been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it.”
Yes, how dare citizens expect our economy to be properly handled and our fiscal house in order?
Barney Frank took his shots at the Military claiming, “the biggest reason the United States is seeing its credit downgraded is that it spends too much money being ‘the military policemen of the world’,” adding “reining in defense spending is ‘going to be my mantra’ for the next few months.”
Barack Obama, after spending a leisurely weekend playing golf and relaxing while the country crumbles around him, went on TV Monday morning with his own finger pointing and blaming everyone, accepting no blame for himself with the stock market tumbling more as he spoke, closing over 600 points down.
German publication Der Spiegel sees the problem as, “Europe and the US are hopelessly over-indebted. The crisis that started in the US real estate sector in 2007 has devastated state finances on both sides of the Atlantic and is threatening to wreck the euro and trigger a second global downturn. The world lacks the political leadership needed to end the turmoil.”
Obama said, “On Friday, we learned that the United States received a downgrade by one of the credit rating agencies -- not so much because they doubt our ability to pay our debt if we make good decisions, but because after witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system’s ability to act. The markets, on the other hand, continue to believe our credit status is AAA. In fact, Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about good investments, said, ‘If there were a quadruple-A rating, I’d give the United States that.’ I, and most of the world’s investors, agree.”
China, the largest foreign holder of our debt says, “The only way the Americans have come up with to improve economic growth has been to take on new loans to repay the old ones. To eat May's grain in April, however, will never be a permanent solution to a problem.”
China went on to call on Washington to “make substantial cuts to its gigantic military expenditure and its bloated social welfare programs,” as they are building their Military up.
There is a lot of blame to be spread around, none of which should be pointed at citizens wanting to see our debt paid down and overspending curtailed. We have no political power and as was seen during the debates on raising the debt limit, our voices went largely ignored.
The establishment GOP and Democrats might throw blame all around, but it is they we called on to get the real spending under control and to begin a policy of paying down on the debt.
We didn’t receive what we called for, but are now the target for business as usual politicians more interested in keeping their cushy positions than actually bettering the condition of the American people.
Obama says that the two sides can come together and solve this crisis.
How they are supposed to work together while placing blame everywhere and not acknowledging how the economy has worsened with every step taken by Obama and the Democrats so far to fix it remains to be seen.
Until they set us on a policy of lessening the staggering debt, now the highest of any nation on the planet, they will do little more than kick the can down the road to future generations.
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