Minor Thoughts from me to you

The S&P Downgrade

The S&P Downgrade →

An oldie from August, that I've been hanging on to, for some reason. Veronique de Rugy breaks down S&P;'s memo about why they downgraded US debt to an AA+ rating.

The bottom line:

In other words, to avoid a downgrade, it would have been key in S&P’s opinion to show signs of willingness to cut (contain) Medicare and other entitlement spending. That didn’t happen, since many lawmakers in Congress (Democrats mainly, though not exclusively) refuse to talk about how much we can really afford to spend on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs.

As a result, it is difficult to claim that the Republicans’ unwillingness to raise revenue is the only reason for this downgrade. It seems to me that there is enough blame to go around.