MAGA Republicans keep trying to push the Republic off the cliff. Their latest salvo, threatening another government shutdown if they don’t get their way on any number of poison-pill budget amendments, was a precipitating factor in the decision of Fitch Ratings to downgrade the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.
Fitch cited the “erosion in confidence in fiscal management” that has “manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions” as the foundation for its downgrade, according to a statement from the ratings agency.
“There has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025. The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management,” the agency said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
“As many economists have noted, the logic and timing of this ratings cut are nonsensical,” Virginia Congressman Don Beyer said in a statement on Wednesday. “The American economy is strong, and continues to get better. Our economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2023, unemployment is at a 50-year low, and economists are no longer forecasting a recession.
“Just as we warned, the recklessness of extreme MAGA Republicans risked massive damage to our economy and harmed our credit rating,” Beyer said. “Fitch cites declines in the governance rating, particularly impacted by Jan. 6th, as a key driver of this ratings cut – even though the governance rating has improved under President Biden. Republican brinksmanship has consequences, and the American people are paying the price.”
The change in rating by Fitch, in and of itself, should not have an immediate noticeable impact on the U.S. economy, but it is a sign that there is concern on the part of some on Wall Street about the repeated political standoffs in Washington, including the latest ongoing manufactured saga that could lead to another senseless government shutdown.
“Despite the harm caused to everyday families by the MAGA majority’s love of trickle-down tax schemes, undermining democracy, and economic hostage-taking, they’ve made matters worse by skipping town rather than doing their basic duty of funding the government,” said Liz Zelnick, director of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
“If inviting another credit downgrade and recession is all part of the MAGA majority’s plan for more political stunts, they should at least be honest about it,” Zelnick said.
Per the Clean Budget Coalition, a project of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, an alliance of more than 160 consumer, labor, scientific, research, faith, community, environmental, small business, good government, public health and public interest groups, House Republicans have loaded up their draft annual spending bills with at least 18 poison-pill policy riders that foster right-wing extremism, violence, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.
Among the poison pills: one rider that would forbid implementation, enforcement, and legal defense of a rule to regulate ghost guns, another that would block funding for the appointment of a deputy inspector general in the U.S. Department of Defense whose job is to prevent and respond to supremacist, extremist, and criminal gang activities by members of the Armed Forces, a third that would require the White House to submit a report on the investigative materials associated with the cocaine discovery from July 2.
“The attack on our democracy we saw on January 6th was a horrifically violent moment and an outgrowth of extremism, white nationalism, and anti-democratic rhetoric,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Clean Budget Coalition. “We are seeing all of those trends continue in the culture war policies included in the GOP-drafted annual spending bills. These poison pills are an attempt to stymie our democracy by other means.”
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Chris Graham
