One of the “Big Three” credit agencies lowered the United States’s rating by a tick on Tuesday, eliciting swift condemnation from Biden administration officials who said they “strongly disagree” with the change.
Fitch Ratings downgraded the country’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating from top-rated “AAA” to “AA+” in a move that could lead to higher interest rates and borrowing costs. It follows the federal government narrowly avoiding a default on its debt earlier this summer and several weeks ahead of a possible shutdown if a politically-divided Congress fails to come to an agreement on spending for the next fiscal year.
“The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and…
