As budget negotiations between President Obama and Congress continue to grab daily headlines, looming in the background of many news stories are references to Standard & Poor’s. A leading provider of financial ratings, S&P has repeatedly warned that it will downgrade the U.S.’s AAA/A-1+ credit score pending the outcome of the debt-ceiling standoff, and the creation of a debt-reduction plan.
S&P debt ratings chief David T. Beers makes no bones about this. “If you want your ratings to do what they are designed to do, you have to call these things as you see them,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “And that’s what we are committed to doing.”
