Last week, we saw a full frontal assault by President Obama’s henchmen in blaming the Tea Party for the downgrade to America’s credit rating by Standard and Poor’s. You had former White House aide, and now Obama campaign advisor, David Axelrod saying on Face the Nation that the downgrade was the Tea Party’s fault. Moments later Senator John Kerry was saying the same exact thing on Meet the Press. It seems that there was a big pow-wow amongst the Obama campaign and other prominent liberals on how to spin the blame for this mess. Surely the finger of blame could not be pointed at Obama.
Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Allie cartoons)
Standard and Poor’s telegraphed that a downgrade would occur if the Obama Administration did not get spending under control. Back in April, the credit rating agency put America on a “negative watch” because of our nation’s unsustainable $14 trillion debt. If President Obama was the true “leader” that he sold the American people on back in 2008, he would have issued a real plan to put America on a path toward fiscal sanity. He did not. On July 14th, Standard and Poor’s said there was a 50 percent chance that they would downgrade America’s credit rating within 90 days. At that point President Obama should have sounded the alarm. All we got from this White House was silence. The day of reckoning happened on August 5th and for the first time in history America did not have a AAA credit rating. Through both World Wars of the last century, and the Great Depression, America had a AAA credit rating which was rock solid.
Standard and Poor’s decision was inevitable because of the constant spending the Obama Administration continues to push. From the outset, Standard and Poor’s has said America needs to cut $4 trillion from its debt – almost entirely the total debt accrued since Obama took office. At the start of the debt ceiling debate, President Obama said he wanted a “clean” bill, meaning he did not want any spending cuts tied to the raising of the debt ceiling. But the Tea Party has put the idea of cutting the federal government’s spending front and center. If it was not for the newly elected members of Congress, backed by the Tea Party, President Obama would have most certainly got his way. CNBC’s Rick Sentelli put it best when he said, “Blame the Tea Party…if it wasn’t for the Tea Party they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up [and] we would have been rated triple B!” The Tea Party has changed the debate in Washington.
Under President Obama, America continues to have a spending problem – not a revenue problem. As the “super committee” starts its work on cutting, I would hope that they cut up to the $4 trillion Standard and Poor’s has asked for. I fear that they will only make marginal cuts while not solving the problem of entitlement spending. Future generations will suffer because this generation could not make the tough decisions necessary to change our economic fate. The Tea Party has given a voice to those Americans who want real cuts to the ever-growing federal government. President Obama and Democrats in Congress should listen.
