Christina Romer, the former chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Friday offered a rather strong opinion concerning the announcement by Standard & Poor's that the credit rating agency downgraded America's debt to AA+.
Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Romer said we're "pretty darn f--ked" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER, HOST: So, excuse my language, but we used to do a segment on this show called “How F—ked Are We?”
(VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: I didn’t expect that there. This, just before we went on the air they said our rating got downgraded.
[Laughter and applause]
MAHER: Ooh.
ROMER: I’ve been hanging around Tim Geithner too long.
[Laughter]
MAHER: Why, does he swear like a sailor?
ROMER: Oh, like a seventh grade boy.
Isn't it interesting how we were told it would be a calamity if we didn't raise the debt ceiling, and three days after we do, our credit rating is cut anyway?
And what about Obama and his media minions initially asking for a "clean vote" that wouldn't have included any revenues or cuts?
Given S&P's decision, a raise of the ceiling without any spending cuts would have produced this same result.
It therefore is going to be very interesting in the coming days to watch how the Obama-loving media spin this.
Will they make the case that this wouldn't have occurred if Republicans accepted the President's "grand bargain" despite him having never actually put anything in writing that could be legitimately analyzed as well as scored by the Congressional Budget Office?
Stay tuned.
