President Obama’s Statement On Credit Downgrade

President Obama made time to talk about the credit downgrade yesterday (8/8/2011) about an hour after they had scheduled him to talk. Obama does not agree with the S&P and felt we deserve a higher rating. “After witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system’s ability to act. The markets, on the other hand, continue to believe our credit status is AAA. In fact, Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about good investments, said, ‘If there were a quadruple-A rating, I’d give the United States that.’ I, and most of the world’s investors, agree,” Obama said. All this while the market was dropping 600 points for the day. He then went on to place blame for the downgrade decision on the shoulders of anyone else but himself. Obama said, “It’s not a lack of plans or policies that is a problem here, it’s a lack of political will in Washington. it is the insistence of drawing lines in the sand. A refusal to put what’s best for the country ahead of self-interest or party or ideology. And that’s what we need to change. I realize after what we just went through there is some skepticism in that.” Then President Obama put on his leadership hat and offered a solution to get people back to work. According to Obama if we cut unemployment benefits we could lose a million jobs. “We should continue to make sure that if you’re one of the millions of Americans out there looking for a job you can get the unemployment insurance that your tax dollars contributed to. That will also put money in people’s pockets and more customers in stores. In fact, if Congress fails to extend the payroll tax cut and the unemployment insurance benefits that I’ve called for, it could mean one million fewer jobs and half-a-percent less growth. This is something we could do immediately. Something we could do as soon as Congress gets back.” Or we could just go play golf until they get back.