Thanks for knocking the US credit rating from AAA to AA+

Hope this does not get in Fred House of Politics for a few hours

S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating - Aug. 5, 2011

Couple of weeks ago, it was reported if a debt-ceiling plan could trim $4 trillion over the next ten years, the US credit rating of AAA could be preserved. All that needed to happen was add some revenue with the trimming...it would have happened 30 years ago, even with an arch-conservative President named Ronald Reagan...he would have pushed for all he could, but not go for broke....debt-ceiling increased 18 times on his watch. Back then he was influenced by Jack Kemp, who made a effort to expand the GOP to conservative Democrats and minorities. He got elected in 1980 by distancing himself from the Rushes of his day, was civil to the Democrats. He did not get rid of Medicare or Social Security as fearmongers tried to say, yet today he would be disowned by the TEA party...if Reagan were alive today, they would be at odds with him even though he is treated like a patron saint.

Stable democracies know how to compromise, as the US did until about 20 years ago - fringe parties take the "my way or the highway stand."

The GOP is different now - they were trying to expand their ranks. Now, as the white population is headed towards minority status later this century, the GOP is telling many of it's members they are RINOs...trying to figure out how I had a reputation as an arch-conservative but now I'm leaning socialist? I get this picture while the GOP is the minority party, the leaders want to run many of those members off, get angrier and more militant....I do not understand their math by subtraction in winning elections or encouraging a working environment many of their constituency lose their jobs.

Talk shows and special interest groups have encouraged polarization and no compromise - the dysfunctional atmosphere that led to an inadequate budget-ceiling bill prompting S&P to knock down the US credit rating down.

The TEA party is supposed to be all about not having tax hikes, yet they made the credit rating downgrade happen....how is that not a tax hike for everybody? This accelerates the movement from the dollar as the cornerstone of the world's currency, the day Chinese stop loaning on us. I hear a few cynically saying the TEA party wanted to hurt the economy, but the pubic is stupid enough to blame Obama because it's on his watch - are they? Should I say the tax hike is actually an elimination of a tax cut?

Why didn't the TEA party get what they could two weeks ago and just press hard the next time? The courts and government move slowly.

The US budget is so out of hand hard choices have to be made and will get even harder...pet programs for both Democrat and Republicans will have to be cut

I'm a conservative, never will be a Democrat, but don't think I'm a Republican anymore - why are they eager to hurt the economy for partisan politics?