Newsletter: Standard and Poor's Downgrade Calls For Major Action

Press Release

Dear Friends:

Standard and Poor's (S&P) downgrading marks the first time in our nation's history that the federal government's credit rating has been reduced.

For months, the rating agencies have warned that without significant reform of the federal government's mushrooming deficits, a downgrade was likely. This action affects the "full faith and credit of the United States." It could seriously damage our nation's ability to provide for our future defense and security.

Like you, I am deeply concerned by the dismal fiscal direction of our country in recent years. The federal government's $14.5 trillion debt is hanging over the future of our children and grandchildren like a large and growing dark cloud.

Earlier this year, the House acted to remove this cloud. It passed a budget to cut spending by over $6 trillion, as well as legislation to remove complicated and expensive regulatory burdens on small businesses. Unfortunately, the Senate did not act on this reform legislation and has not even adopted a budget in over two years. I sincerely believe that if the Senate had acted in a serious and professional manner, we could have prevented the downgrading of our debt.

The Congress passed the Budget Control Act which was an accord with the Senate and the President . Unfortunately, it cut only $2 trillion from the debt but I supported it so that our nation would avoid a default on debt payments. S&P then decided to downgrade our nation's credit rating because they believed that this legislation did not reduce our projected deficits enough.

I am ready, willing, and committed to finishing the work of cutting, capping and balancing now: cutting wasteful projects, capping expenditures and balancing our federal budget. If this involves calling the Congress back into session to do this, I am ready to go back to the Capitol, continue to roll up my sleeves, and take care of these key issues.

Along with the majority of the House, I will continue to fight to reduce our debt by significant cuts in future spending, including the billions of dollars of waste identified by a recent GAO report. I also will continue to support a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget as I have since I was first elected to Congress.

Tax reform is also another way to help reduce our debt by restoring economic growth. We need to simplify our tax code, remove loopholes, lower tax rates, improve competitiveness for American job creators, and develop a fairer, flatter tax system for all Americans.

In addition, we need to reform our broken budget process which relies on inaccurate economic forecasting models, "baseline" budgeting, and provisions that allow one or more houses of Congress to ignore their responsibility to create annual budgets.

What are your ideas on restoring fiscal sanity to our budget problems?

Sincerely,

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Member of Congress

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