Democratic Ceiling Wax

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Monday's outlook change by ratings agency Standard & Poors (S&P) for U.S. federal government debt -- going from stable to negative while affirming the current AAA rating -- brought Democratic responses that would have made George Orwell proud.

S&P's rationale is that despite a "high-income, highly diversified, and flexible economy, backed by a strong track record of prudent and credible monetary policy" (the latter being a characterization certainly up for debate), "the U.S.'s fiscal profile has deteriorated steadily during the past decade." This deterioration has led the U.S. to have higher deficit/GDP and debt/GDP ratios than most other AAA-rated nations and S&P is skeptical of the ability of Congress and the Administration to reach agreement as well as the potential of any agreement to have substantial impact within a few years. Thus the change in outlook which means at least a one-in-three chance of the debt rating itself being lowered within two years.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), aiming for a gold medal in logical gymnastics, interpreted S&P's warning about potentially unmanageable debt as meaning that "Republicans cannot hold the debt limit hostage over partisan, divisive issues" (such as reducing government spending, apparently).
White House Press Secretary Jay "Anyone but Gibbs" Carney chimed in similarly: "The issue here is the debt ceiling has to be raised."