Just the facts: S&P's $2 trillion mistake

In their initial, incorrect estimates, S&P projected that the debt as a share of GDP would rise rapidly through the middle of the decade, and they cited this as a primary reason for a downgrade.

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In S&P’s corrected estimates – which lowered S&P’s projection of future deficits by $2 trillion over 10 years and lowered S&P’s estimate of debt as a share of GDP in 2021 by 8 percentage points – public debt is much more stable…

Independent of this error, there is no justifiable rationale for downgrading the debt of the United States. There are millions of investors around the globe that trade Treasury securities. They assess our creditworthiness every minute of every day, and their collective judgment is that the U.S. has the means and political will to make good on its obligations. The magnitude of this mistake – and the haste with which S&P changed its principal rationale for action when presented with this error – raise fundamental questions about the credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action.

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