In today’s WSJ,
S&P, Moody’s Warn On U.S. Credit Rating
The U.S. currently has a triple-A rating with a stable outlook at both agencies.
“The view of markets is that the U.S. will continue to benefit from the exorbitant privilege linked to the U.S. dollar” to fund its deficits, Carol Sirou, head of S&P France, said at a Paris conference Thursday. “But that may change. We can’t rule out changing the outlook” on the U.S. sovereign debt rating in the future, she warned. She added the jobless nature of the U.S. recovery was one of the biggest threats to the U.S. economy. “No triple-A rating is forever,” she said.
The Heritage Foundation recommends, No Debt Ceiling Raise Without Spending Cuts
Just yesterday, The Heritage Foundation released the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom which showed that the irresponsible spending habits of the last Congress had once again pushed the United States down the international ranking to #9, behind nations such as Denmark, Canada and first-place Hong Kong. The Index showed that runaway spending posed the greatest risk to our economic freedom, and thus our ability to reduce poverty and create economic growth. The U.S. can turn things around and continue to be a leader of this prosperous free world, but first we have to get our own bad spending habits under control. The debate over the debt ceiling provides the perfect opportunity to put us on this path.
We have time, there are options available, but action is necessary. Raising the debt ceiling, without also addressing our federal government’s spending problem, would be, as one Senator once said, “a sign of leadership failure.”
That Senator, by the way, was Barack Obama.
