Two leading credit rating agencies on Thursday cautioned the U.S. on its credit rating, expressing concern over a deteriorating fiscal situation that they say needs correction.
Moody’s Investors Service said in a report Thursday that the U.S. will need to reverse an upward trajectory in the debt ratios to support its triple-A rating.
“We have become increasingly clear about the fact that if there are not offsetting measures to reverse the deterioration in negative fundamentals in the U.S., the likelihood of a negative outlook over the next two years will increase,” said Sarah Carlson, senior analyst at Moody’s.
Yep, NAFTA and GATT worked out great, didn’t they? The “War” on poverty worked out great too, huh? Our elected officials are dooming us to poverty and our children’s children to debt slavery.
BTW…would the Left’s use of the term “War on Poverty” be one of those vitriolic hate speech terms? I mean, if Sarah Palin’s targeting of political opponents is an evil metaphor, wouldn’t something like “War on Poverty” or “War on Drugs” be just a vitriolic? Oh, that’s different? Have some more Kool-aid.
Neither NAFTA nor GATT nor the War on Poverty are the issue. The issue is Washington’s inability to live within its means. The single greatest contributing factor to our current debt is not NAFTA but our national addiction to military adventurism and empire building around the world. It is our war of choice in Iraq not GATT which has nearly bankrupted this country. Never in the history of the Republic has a president launched a massive war and demanded tax cuts at the same time.
If you want to balance the budget without raising taxes I would suggest we start by telling the American people that we need to learn to mind our own damned business and stop sticking our heavily armed nose into every corner of the globe.
For those who missed the memo… The cold war is over and we won. What the —- are we maintaining a standing army in Europe for? Why can’t Europe take care of its own defense now? Ditto Japan and Korea. South Korea could annihilate N. Korea’s antiquated military with one arm tied behind their back. And if they are worried about N. Korea’s nukes, just build their own. We nod and wink at Israel’s nuclear arsenal and nobody seems to give a rat’s — that Iran is building atom bombs. S. Korea is quite capable of taking care of themselves as is Japan.
We need to start cutting the budget to the bone, the whole budget. No more sacred cows and no more free rides for the rest of the world that spends mega bucks on their economy while we provide free protection. And if Congress does decide it wants to spend money on something than it needs to come up with that money upfront. That means either cut spending somewhere else or raise taxes. But it is time to stop the insanity. No more debt! Not one cent!
As for Moody’s and S&P; they are a joke. In any sane world we would have been stripped of our AAA credit rating halfway through George Bush’s tenure as President.
I agree we should start sending bills to all the countries for whom we are providing military protection. I’ve never understood how we were so stupid as to become “the world’s policeman,” without getting anything in return. We get taken advantage of by a lot of the world, constantly getting criticized for our “expansionism,” but then everyone wants us to solve and intervene into the world’s conflicts.
There were perfectly fine professional and ethical mercenary companies for hire such as Executive Outcomes that could take care of a lot of these problems efficiently. They could have quickly stopped down the Rwanda situation, but the world turned down their noses at using mercenaries, and as a result hundreds of thousands were needlessly massacred.
Yep, close down some of those overseas military basis. Shoot, they don’t really want us in Okinawa, anyway. That one should be on the top of the list for closure. Along with Germany and the UK.
You are right…my terminology was wrong. GATT became the WTO in 1994. Clinton granted China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), and China then got into the WTO. Since then (December 11, 2001), the US trade deficit with China climbed by 173 percent, ($83 billion in 2000 to $227 billion in 2009). The US has also lost more than 5.6 million manufacturing jobs or about 1/3 of all our manufacturing jobs. Our wages have also gone down. So tell me again how wonderful the WTO is. Better yet, tell the 9+% unemployed how wonderful WTO has been.
Back in 1994 the US trade deficit was $100 Billion. By 2000, just six years later, the US trade deficit was nearly $400 Billion. By 2006 the US trade deficit was about $750 Billion. Because of the financial crash in 2008, the US trade deficit has returned to the nearly $400 Billion level. The point is…I thought that the WTO was supposed to level the field…yet we have consistently run trade deficits under both the GATT and the WTO. So how is that in our interest? How is that improving life for America? How is that helping our unemployment issues?
S&T
I don’t dispute what you are saying, though the history of trade protectionism is a rather ugly one. But I don’t see the relevance to the issue of the national debt. The topic here is the government’s spending habits, not international commerce.
The connection I am trying to make is that tax revenues are down because we have an over 9% unemployment rate and that is likely to be semi-permanent or “the new normal”. Not only are tax revenues down, the economy is in a slump and the consumer spending that might be able to pull it out of that slump isn’t happening because of the high unemployment, under employment, and fear of both that the average working class folks have right now. The loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and the continued prospect of even more outsourcing is only making things worse. There is something like a 40% discrepancy with where China’s currency value should be and where it actually is…undercutting all of our efforts to stabilize the economy…and the trade deficit remains unbelievably out of balance in a harmful to America way.
I agree, we have a spending problem…but we also have an earning problem. You cannot have real wages decline for more than a decade and expect tax revenues to be unaffected.
As for the War on Poverty…since 1964 we have spent $8–10 trillion on antipoverty programs, yet the poverty rate today is about the same as it was in 1964. You cannot tell me that part of the massive debt of over $14 Trillion today is not connected at all to this huge waste of money any more than someone could tell me that having two shooting wars going on at the same time isn’t related to the national debt.
By all means, curb spending…but we also need to correct the trade imbalances caused by the WTO and our dealings with China, the unemployment problem, and the “quantitative easing” of the FED.
[blockquote]Our elected officials are dooming us to poverty and our children’s children to debt slavery. [/blockquote]
Indeed, I have called everyone from Nancy Pelosi, to John Kerry, any anyone who will listen and said these words. All one gets for the trouble is silence, then … crickets.