Who is more to blame for the US credit downgrade, congress or Obama?

[Zadoc]

I hate to say I told you so, well not really, but I called this. Congress proved that the government is dysfunctional and are willing to destroy the US economy just for their partisan idealogy. I wouldn't lend us money either after a stunt like that.

http://www.wepolls.com/p/1716663">Vote: Who is more to blame for the US credit downgrade, congress or Obama? - POLL

[sakabatou]

1. Congress, especially the Republicans

[Andy823]

2. Forgot one

TEABAGGERS! They are the ones that accomplished this, and if it weren't for them it would not have happened. It has never happened before, and if the mainstream republicans in congress were scared to death of a tea party challenger next year in their primaries, they would have pass the debt ceiling before it got so far out of hand.

[frazzled]

3. Republiicans in Congress and S&P

They wanted this to happen. When they couldn't quite let the country default, S&P (that honorable firm that so wisely graded the credit default swaps as golden) went ahead and downgraded anyway. They even made a $2 billion mistake in their math. After conceding it, they still went ahead with the downgrade ... on the basis that the Republicans are going to block the expiration of the Bush tax cuts anyway. You can't make this shit up.

[Angry Dragon]

4. The answer is:

THE REPUBLICANS

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Who the hell manufactured a crises...

Once you answer that, afix blame.

[izquierdista]

6. I think Boner gets 98% of it.

[applegrove]

7. Republicans.

[bhikkhu]

8. The republicans who were willing to go to default before allowing revenue

teabaggers, of course. Specifically, the ratings agency wanted to see 4 trillion, and there was no feasible way to get there without new revenue.

With that said, Standard & Poors is playing some obnoxious politics, and has plenty of skeletons in its closet from ratings malfeasance prior to the last big recession. The whole thing stinks to high heaven, and I hope Obama is reconsidering the light hand he applied to these guys after the crash...

[Lil Missy]

9. Teabaggers

[saras]

10. The bankers

That's kind of like asking whether the corrupt officer or the corrupt police chief is responsible for the Mafia being in town. Whichever one assisted more, it's the Mafia that's ultimately responsible.

Which is why I don't understand why we didn't round up the criminals when we had a clear opportunity. If twenty or so bankers were doing serious hard time by now (and maybe a couple had died in prison - that happens if you can't respect people who are different than you), then the rest of them would be behaving a lot more sensibly now.

[libmom74]

11. They should have

had a button for Congress and Obama. Congress for playing stupid political games with the debt ceiling and Obama for playing along.

[Doctor_J]

12. Unfortunately the president assumed part of the responsibilty

he should have come out early with loud, consistent bashing of the the teabaggers for making this into a crisis. But he played along and eventually gave away the farm for no good reason.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. The Republicans.

Both in Congress and those running for president.

After Republicans in Congress spent three months weighing whether or not to default on our debt and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that paying our bills would never again be a foregone conclusion, can anyone really argue with that? After every Republican presidential candidate save Jon Huntsman either remained silent on, or flatly opposed, the deal to raise the debt ceiling, can anyone really say that U.S. debt is completely riskless? That there’s no chance of a political miscalculation, and if there is such a chance, that they can perfectly predict the outcome of the ensuing chaos?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/standard-and-poors-has-been-wrong-before-but-theyre-right-now/2011/07/11/gIQANpnIyI_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein

[Bill USA]

14. This is not a serious question. Everybody knows the REpublicans caused this by

.. demanding ridiculous cuts at a time when the economy could least afford it.


S & P said a significant factor in making their downward revision of our credit rating was that they are convinced the republicans are going to get the Bush tax cuts made permanent which will add significantly to the deficit. see link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x619409

[NorthCarolina]

15. Both. It's just one big ship of fools. nt