The Ellison Report: Who's Responsible for the S&P Downgrade?

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) took to his Twitter page a few days after Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced it had downgraded the United States’ long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+:

• “How can [Republican] House/Senate leaders avoid/deny responsibility for S&P downgrade.”

Ellison’s tweet early Sunday morning gave way to more reports that Democrats and Republicans were playing the blame game.

According to a Politico article, the “political gridlock”—namely the debt ceiling debate—contributed to the nation’s first-ever credit rating reduction. The writer of the article then joked that both parties agree the “blame is shared, but mostly the other guy’s fault.”

As far as Ellison’s own finger pointing, it may be in the right direction as far S&P is concerned. According to S&P’s official report, its decision came after many Republicans refused to pursue revenue-raising avenues—mostly  their refusal to raise taxes on higher earning Americans:

• “Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place,” S&P stated. “We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues.”

In addition,  and also tweeted Sunday:

• “[Republican] House majorities mean near defaults, downgrades, costlier loans, no jobs. Americans need pro-job majorities.”

The entire S&P report outling its decision is attached to this article as a PDF.