Fitch warns on U.S. rating as debt ceiling fight looms

Reuters ^ | Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:36pm EST | Marc Jones, William James and Daniel Bases

[Olog-hai]

The United States faces a “material risk” of losing its AAA status if there is a repeat of the wrangling seen in 2011 over raising the country’s self-imposed debt ceiling, credit ratings firm Fitch said on Tuesday.

The United States scraped up against its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on Dec. 31 and is now employing special measures to meet its financial obligations. The Treasury Department said those steps could be exhausted by mid-February.

Despite December’s deal by U.S. politicians to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax hikes, Fitch’s head of sovereign ratings, David Riley, said pressure on the country's rating was increasing.

“If we have a repeat of the August 2011 debt ceiling crisis, we will place the U.S. rating under review. There will be a material risk of the U.S. rating coming down,” Riley said at a conference hosted by the firm. …

[Olog-hai]

Uh-huh . . . and what happened last time? The debt ceiling got raised and the rating agencies cut the USA’s credit rating from AAA+ to AAA anyway. Spare us the propaganda, liberal media; many of us have learned from history.

[ReaganGeneration2]

All the Fitch people worry about is gov’t squabbling and inability to cut the deficit. They don’t appear to worry about US defaulting. The only ones mentioning that are Obama, Bernanke, and the MSM.

That’s because it’s pure deception and a fake argument. The US won’t default, as tax receipts still come in and debts are serviced. If there was any danger of that, the ratings agencies would be talking about “A” ratings now.