Posted on 08/07/2011 5:17:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The day after Standard & Poors took the unprecedented step of stripping the United States government of its top credit rating, the ratings agency offered a full-throated defense of its decision, calling the bitter stand-off between President Obama and Congress over raising the debt ceiling a debacle. It warned that further downgrades may lie ahead.
In an unusual Saturday conference call with reporters, senior S.& P. officials insisted the ratings firm hadnt overstepped its bounds by focusing on the political paralysis in Washington as much as fiscal policy in determining the new rating. The debacle over the debt ceiling continued until almost the midnight hour, said John B. Chambers, chairman of S.& P.s sovereign ratings committee.
Another S.& P. official, David Beers, added that fiscal policy, like other government policy, is fundamentally a political process.
Initial reactions from Congressional leaders suggested that S.& P.s action was unlikely to force consensus on the fundamental divide over spending and taxes. Politicians on both sides used the decision to bolster their own long-standing positions.
Officials at the White House and Treasury criticized S.& P.s move as based on faulty budget accounting that did not factor in the just-enacted deal for increasing the debt limit.
Gene Sperling, the director of the White House national economic council, called the difference, totaling over $2 trillion, breathtaking and said that the amateurism it displayed suggested an institution starting with a conclusion and shaping any arguments to fit it.
Even as the ratings agency insisted on Saturday that its move shouldnt have come as a shock, it reverberated around the world. Officials from China to Europe scrambled to assess the downgrades impact on the already troubled global economy, and political leaders in the United States sought to frame the issue in their favor.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If they were to take it to the streets, they could demonstrate why their figures are more accurate than the figure the government is always devising...
Thanks. I find it interesting that much of the *good*/up-to-date writing is coming from the UK, these days. ;)
In $ Trillions | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
Total | $1,936 | $2,107 | $2,319 | $2,570 | $2,668 | $2,854 | $2,899 | $2,945 | $2,992 | $3,039 |
Social Security | $623 | $751 | $924 | $1,123 | $1,166 | $1,309 | $1,309 | $1,309 | $1,309 | $1,309 |
Health and Human Services | $270 | $299 | $329 | $361 | $395 | $414 | $434 | $454 | $475 | $496 |
Discretionary Spending | $1,043 | $1,057 | $1,066 | $1,086 | $1,107 | $1,131 | $1,156 | $1,182 | $1,208 | $1,234 |
I wonder what the other credit rating agencies are going to do when the S&P downgrades the USA again?
Right on!
But all these components have been there almost from the time Onada stole the WH and Wall Street began overtly covering for Onada. No?
...so after watching Lindsey Lohan stagger around drunkenly screaming about how no one would hire her before passing out in the gutter, would you lend her money?
Neither would anyone else.
We have the Lindsey Lohan government - and flashing our private parts at everyone around us isn’t going to make them want to give us more.
Elections have consequences. A majority voted the wrong way and now we’re all going to pay. :(:(:(:(:(:(
Thanks for the numbers. May I ask what is the source? How is SS spending supposed to level off after 2017?
A quick blurb about the rise of Hitler and his international clones, past and present: I am convinced that there were and still are powerful forces and ideas at work behind the scenes. Call them the conspiracy, the oligarchs, the super-wealthy elites, human nature, whatever that pass the baton from generation to generation. Motivated by impulses most of us “simple folk” cannot fully understand, while they occasionally fail, they often successfully engineer circumstances that can be predicted to preserve and/or extend their wealth and power (mainly power, as from power flow the riches).
I said that to say this: At Versailles after WWI, some of the cooler heads there warned that the highly punitive provisions of that treaty would cause the German people to become susceptible to the rise of a tyrant promising to restore their national pride and raise their devastated nation to power once again. They got him in the early 30s and the rest is history.
If you don’t yet see a parallel between driving Germany to her knees at Versailles and the intentionally destructive things being done to America — largely sans any meaningful protests or outcry — by the would-be despot in the White House, go back to that NYT crossword or the sports page and order another Starbucks ‘cause it’s gonna be alright — NOT!!!
My fear is that this time it won’t take the 14 years it took Hitler — Versailles ‘(1919) to his appointment as Chancellor (1933) — as the guy selected for the position is ALREADY IN PLACE!
Be afraid. Be VERY AFRAID ESPECIALLY IF WE DON’T OUST HIM AND HIS GANG OF ENABLERS IN 2012.
This White House accuses some other entity of “amateurism?” Wow, that’s rich, coming from the biggest bunch of Executive branch amateurs that this country has ever seen.
David Axelshaft is the Ultimate CON-ARTIST! He knows Obama is an Absolute Fraud, and Axelshaft perpetrated the Fraud of getting this Muslim Terrorist elected to America’s Most Important Office! Look at who Axelshaft got elected before OBOZO! He saved John Street’s Butt in the reelection bid for Mayor of the Most Corrupt Demorat City of Filthydelphia!
and I believe the EX-Mayor of Detroit who is now in Prison!!
among other Scumbags!! AXELROD doesn’t have a good bone or cell in his disgusting body!!! The Chinese Ministers were saying in the 90’s that they would Conquer America Economically and Financially because of Our Corruption and Decay!!! How RIGHT they were and are!!!!! We are observing and Living through a Textbook overthrow of the Greates Nation to ever exist on Planet Earth!! Thomas Jefferson stated: “The Enemy within America’s Gates are 10 Times More Dangerous than those Outside her gates!! Beware of Them!! Dinghy Harry Reid sold his Soul to SATAN long ago and Loves His CONDO in the RITZ CARLTON in Washington, D.C., just have the RNC run an AD on how much Dinghy Harry spends just for his RITZ-Carton DIGS for a Year!!! MILLIONS!! and MILLIONS!! Does THE DINGHY care about the Working American? absolutely NOT!! Harry depends on the Stupidity and Control over his Voters! SEIU Union Bozos and Illegals and Sponges who get Government Handouts like thos same dirtballs who were entertained in the Roman Coliseum and lived on Handouts! There are NO HANDOUTS in CHINA nor RUSSIA!!
Thanks for the ping/post; post; thread. BUMP!
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