S&P Downgrade Raises Questions of Credibility, Treasury Says

The Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating was unjustified and casts doubt on the credibility of the firm’s decision, a U.S. Treasury Department official said.

S&P made a $2 trillion “mistake” and then changed the rationale for its decision, raising “fundamental questions about the credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action,” John Bellows, acting assistant secretary for economic policy, wrote in a Treasury blog post today.