U.S. Rating Affirmed by S&P, Moody’s as Supercommittee Fails
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Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service said they won’t lower ratings on the U.S. after the congressional committee charged with finding $1.5 trillion of deficit cuts failed to reach an agreement.
S&P, which stripped the U.S. of its top AAA grade on Aug. 5, said yesterday that the supercommittee’s inability to reach agreement didn’t merit another downgrade because the inaction will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts. The deliberations were “not decisive,” Moody’s spokesman Eduardo Barker said in an e-mail after the panel issued a statement. Fitch Ratings reiterated that the talks failure would likely lead to a revision of the U.S. rating outlook to negative.