You're a moron or a troll, which is it? I suppose the Tea Party holding America's credit rating hostage to their political demands had nothing to do with the credit downgrade? The pussies in the GOP finally grew the balls to not let the Tea Party wackos blow up the economy, but not before they had killed the hostage and caused our credit to be downgraded.

Consider if Nancy Pelosi had threatened to ruin the nation's credit unless Bush ended the war in Iraq, socialized healthcare, and raised taxes on the wealthy? What an outrage right? She had more scrupples than to hold the world economy hostage to her political demands, unlike the tea party freaks.

The S&P were clear in their statement. The downgrade was not because we can't pay our debts, it was the political uncertainty caused by extremists deadbeats who wanted to force default. It is also because the GOP stands against any new revenues regardless of the fact that is a needed component in getting the debt under control. The size of the debt was also pointed out but we had a much larger debt ratio at the end of WWII and we weren't downgraded because we never had elected nutjobs who threatened not to pay our bills and whose goal was to bring down the government.

Here's the S&P's full statement: Try to absorb it all and not cherry pick the parts you like while ignoring the rest:

"We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.

Our lowering of the rating was prompted by our view on the rising public debt burden and our perception of greater policymaking uncertainty, consistent with our criteria (see “Sovereign Government Rating Methodology and Assumptions,” June 30, 2011, especially Paragraphs 36-41). Nevertheless, we view the U.S. federal government’s other economic, external, and monetary credit attributes, which form the basis for the sovereign rating, as broadly unchanged.

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability."