Friday, May 16, 2025

USA loses last AAA rating, from Moody's, perfectly timed for after GOP can't move a budget out of committee lol

Moody’s downgrades U.S. credit rating, citing rise in government debt

... Moody’s had been a holdout in keeping U.S. sovereign debt at the highest credit rating possible, and brings the 116-year-old agency into line with its rivals. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. to AA+ from AAA in August 2011, and Fitch Ratings also cut the U.S. rating to AA+ from AAA, in August 2023.

“Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s analysts said in a statement. “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.” ...

“... we expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending and relatively low revenue generation,” Moody’s said. ″We anticipate that the federal debt burden will rise to about 134% of GDP by 2035, compared to 98% in 2024.″⁣ ...

Moody’s officially rated U.S. bonds in 1993 for the first time, but had assigned a “country ceiling rating” of Aaa on the U.S. since 1949.