ALG on S&P Downgrade of Outlook on U.S. Debt: Catastrophic Failure of Leadership in Washington

 

April 18th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on S&P’s decision to downgrade the outlook on U.S. debt to “negative”: “Sovereign credit rating agencies have repeatedly warned the U.S. to get its fiscal house in order or else face a downgrade of its Triple-A credit rating. Now the agencies are preparing to do just that by taking the first step of downgrading the outlook on U.S. debt to negative. That means a full credit downgrade is now substantially more likely in the next year or two. “The time for half-measures has long past. Credit rating agencies are through issuing warnings, and now are taking action. But elected leaders have not presented any budget to meet the challenge of an imminent credit downgrade. The Obama proposal will never balance the budget, and the House-passed budget will take 26 years to do so. We just don’t have that kind of time. “With a $14.2 trillion gross national debt that will be larger than the entire economy by year’s end, growing to over $25 trillion by 2021, soon our obligations will become too large to refinance, let alone be repaid. “S&P is explicitly telling us that ‘[b]ecause the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us,’ that we do not match up to other Triple-A rated nations. They’re preparing to downgrade us, but we are not prepared to balance the budget any time soon. Today’s statement by S&P signifies a catastrophic failure of leadership in Washington that is risking the very solvency of the American people.” Get permalink here.