A Well-Deserved Downgrading

Standard & Poor’s was right to downgrade the United States. Going from AAA to AA+ is not a catastrophe; it is humiliating, but above all, it is deserved.

For example, last year the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. Did they vote on a budget? No. They were campaigning. …

In February, Barack Obama presented his budget plan for the 2012 fiscal year. Did it include a credible plan for reducing the debt in the middle and long term? No.

In mid-May, when the debt ceiling was reached, negotiations began with the Republicans to raise it. Barack Obama did not get involved for over a month. Joe Biden, his vice president, was put in charge of it. Then, Obama finally got involved. But he never proposed a plan for debt reduction over the middle and long term.

Previous administrations presented plans. Sometimes Congress reviewed them, sometimes Congress ignored them, but it was at least known where you could find a document detailing what the president wanted. Obama does not operate that way. He gives speeches and press conferences, he lets information leak to the press, but he never engages himself through written proposals. Why? It is his very detached style. He proceeded in the same way with his signature health care reform. He never presented a proposal, preferring to amend the work of congressional committees from a distance.

He operates like this partly out of political calculation. He doesn’t want to be accused of having dared to propose cuts in social spending during his campaign.

Everything has been said about Republicans who, on the contrary, voted for bills to reduce social spending. They plunged in the polls, coming across as saboteurs of Medicare and Social Security, two very popular pillars of the “welfare state.”

Everything has been said about their tactic of holding the Treasury hostage, which had the world trembling at the possibility of Uncle Sam defaulting on payments. This method demonstrated that the American political system is not working. Standard & Poor’s clearly says this.

Everything has been said about their absolute refusal to raise taxes. Their intransigence is declared by many to be the reason for the political gridlock.

I don’t agree at all. Their intransigence has forced Obama to yield. Without this intransigence, the debt ceiling would have been raised once again without cuts in spending.

The Republican tactic has certainly demonstrated that Washington was gridlocked and unable to make unpopular decisions. But it is the White House that is refusing to acknowledge the problem of social spending, not the Republicans. Without tackling health care and retirement spending, the United States debt cannot be reduced over the long term. Democrats have to admit this. Accusing Republicans of being horrible servants of the rich wins points in the polls. It does not change the bottom line: Social spending must be reduced.

And of course, taxes must be raised, and not only rich Americans’ taxes. The Republicans will have to yield. But first, the president of the United States needs to dare to do his job. He needs to dare to make a written proposition for social spending cuts.

The irresponsibility in Washington is widely shared. The Democrats are also responsible for America’s downgrading. Barack Obama has been president since January 2009. The national debt was $10.6 trillion when he arrived at the White House. Today, it is $14.6 trillion. You can’t raise the debt by 40 percent and continue to say that all of the problems came from George W. Bush. It isn’t credible.

You can’t raise the debt by 40 percent, fail to propose a concrete plan for restoring the fiscal credibility of the government and then take offense when Standard & Poor’s downgrades the federal credit rating.