One year anniversary of the U.S. credit downgrade

Today marks the unfortunate one year anniversary of the first downgrade to the credit rating of the United States in its history. According to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the debt ceiling fight cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.

Leading to the downgrade was the “political brinksmanship” of a Republican-manufactured crisis over whether the United States would pay its bills. In President Ronald Reagan’s words, they refused to meet the “special responsibility” that the United States has to itself and the world. See the video below to hear what Reagan said about this type of brinkmanship:

It’s part of a broader trend that has created the most dysfunctional Congress in more than 40 years. Two of the leading scholars of Congress – Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein – wrote, “the GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understand of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of public opposition.”

American families can’t afford this type of extremism anymore. It’s time for Congress to do what everyone agrees should be done – like preventing a tax hike on middle class families. House Republicans must work for American families – not just the far right of their party.