Over-Rated

The United States lost its triple-A credit rating today when Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. Treasury debt to AA+.

As it has for every other misfortune in the past two and a half years, the Obama Administration will blame President Bush and Republican policies for this development. Yes, there will be a kernel of truth in that claim, but that argument conveniently ignores the fact that Democrats had overwhelming and filibuster-proof majorities in the House and Senate for the first two years, as well as an uncritical mainstream media (with the exception of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) to cheer it on.

President Obama and the Democrats were hired to fix the problems, not lament their difficulty and pin them on others when they got worse. They can always blame the messenger by tarnishing S&P and the other rating agencies for their securities-grading errors during the past decade. Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch grossly over-rated debt obligations before, and, come to think of it, a Treasury rating of double-A may still be too generous.