Tribal Politics Cause US Credit Downgrade

The United States recently had its credit rating downgraded, a decision that could have sprawling financial impacts on average Americans. But rather than working to fix the problems, both Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for the downgrade. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The United States recently had its credit rating downgraded. It's a decision that could have sprawling financial impacts on the average American. But rather than working to fix the problem, both Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for the downgrade. I have Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joining me. Probably the best, absolutely the best progressive commentator in the business. That's what I think of you, I actually think you are the best commentator in this business.

That means a lot. Thank you.

So I wanna know what your take is on this. I see it looks like a food fight, doesn't it? Fitch says, look, we haven't downgraded you. Biden is, it's like musical chairs. Biden is the guy that's in charge when this happens. He's, you know, and all of a sudden the Democrats say, no, this is, this was Trump. This happened because of January 6th, two and a half years ago. And understand, they do these ratings like quarterly.

Yeah.

So if it would've been January 6th, I think they would've downgraded by now. Let's talk about it though.

It is funny because when happened, you know, all the liberal sites I checked, they all say, look at this, Republicans, it's January 6th. They're responsible for this. Their attempted shutdown of the government. It did this. You look at the conservative media sites, oh, look what the Democrats have done with the spending, the outta control spending. So both sides have said, it's not us, it's these guys.

But let's go to what they said. Let's go to what Fitch said. I mean, let's, and then talk about it. Fitch said, look, it is, they made a list and it is spending. It was one of the, Fitch is one, first of all, Fitch is one of the big three credit ratings. It's an important story. They expected fiscal deterioration over the next several years. That was in there. High government deficit burden because of crazy spending. And that's Republicans and Democrats spending like drunk sailors on a weekend, you can't say that was just Democrats. Republicans had to vote for it too. They had the right to stop it if they didn't want to do it. Last minute resolutions on debt limits. Children in a food fight. All, well, let's wait till the last minute to see if we still are in business. And deterioration of governance. But, you know, deterioration of governance is pretty evident. They can't even be in a room without like being children fighting over nothing. Everything's so tribal and divided. Fitch looks at it and says, my God, who is, it looks like Home Alone. We're not interested in a Home Alone series. Right?

Well, and I think it may be the last thing on the list, but I really think that is the most important because that is the one that represents the worst trend that we see right now in politics. It is almost impossible for Democrats to get Republicans to go along with their legislation or Republicans to get Democrats to go. Nobody wants to work with the other side because it has become more tribal. And you and I have been doing this for over 20 years, we haven't seen it like this. Even during the bush years, we did not have this much of a divide in Congress.

You know what I think is funny? We have comments that come through our staff. Our staff shows us a comment every now and then. And the comment is, you got me and they got you. Now, first of all, we're friends. We disagree with a lot of things, but we don't yell at each other. We respect each other. And the people can't stand that. When I say something that might sound middle of the road, they say, by God, Farron, why didn't you jump in there and beat him up? Because that's not how it ought to go.