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Why The Fitch Downgrade Should Be A Wake-Up Call To Washington — Even If It’s Wrong
By Ben Ritz
Director of PPI's Center for Funding America's Future
For Forbes
How concerned should policymakers and their constituents be about Fitch Ratings Agency’s decision to downgrade the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+ last week? The White House brushed it off, saying Fitch “defies reality” to downgrade U.S. credit at a time when the country is experiencing “the strongest recovery of any major economy in the world.” Meanwhile, leading Republicans say it’s “a wake-up call to get our fiscal house in order before it’s too late." The truth is: they’re both right.
On the fundamentals, this downgrade is perplexing because the federal government is no more likely to miss a bond payment today than it has been for the past decade. As the world’s largest economy and one that borrows in its own currency, there is little doubt the U.S. government has a greater ability to pay back its debts than any other entity on Earth. Both Fitch and Moody’s Analytics reaffirmed the AAA credit rating in 2011 even when formerly unprecedented debt-limit brinkmanship caused S&P to issue the first-ever downgrade of U.S. credit. Little has changed since then from a financial perspective — if anything, the U.S. economy is far stronger than it was 12 years ago, both in absolute terms and relative to other advanced economies.
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ICYMI: Energy permitting is broken: New analytics can fix it
By Paul Bledsoe and Elan Sykes
Strategic Advisor and Energy Policy Analyst
For The Hill
The energy permitting reforms included in the recent bipartisan budget agreement represented modest progress — but they didn’t fix the problem. The main challenge, and the huge economic opportunity, is the sheer number of energy projects that must be permitted rapidly to save consumers money and limit emissions.
Thousands of these projects — wind power, solar, geothermal, powerlines, pipelines, carbon capture and many more — are pending reviews by federal agencies, electricity grid operators and state and local jurisdictions in every region. These permits cannot possibly be processed rapidly on a one-by-one basis, as the current system demands.
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New from the Experts
Carbon Tariffs Could Be a Winner for Both Parties ft. Paul Bledsoe, PPI's Strategic Advisor
⮕ Axios
Billionaire investor threatens to pull out of UK amid global outcry at new oil rush ft. Paul Bledsoe, PPI's Strategic Advisor
⮕ The Guardian
Bidenomics lessons: Labour looks to Democrats as it prepares for power ft. Claire Ainsley, Director of PPI's Project on Center-Left Renewal
⮕ The Guardian
The global threat of climate change, ft. Paul Bledsoe, PPI's Strategic Advisor
⮕ WATCH: CGTN America
Kristin Rheins, PPI's Public Policy Fellow: The Debate of Liability for AI-Generated Content
⮕ PPI Blog
Trade Fact of the Week: Vanilla, A Poorly Chosen Synonym for 'Boring'
⮕ PPI's Trade Fact of the Week
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Mosaic Moment
Building the Next Digital Workforce Generation
On this episode of the Mosaic Moment, Jasmine Stoughton sits down with PPI’s Director of Workforce Development Policy, Taylor Maag, and Senior Software Engineer, Eela Nagaraj, to talk about the importance of building a strong digital workforce and how governments and the tech industry are ensuring the next generation of skilled professionals.
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Don't Miss These PPI Reports
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Staff Spotlight: Ben Ritz
Ben Ritz
Director of PPI's Center for Funding America's Future
Ben Ritz is the Director of PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future, which develops policy proposals to strengthen public investments in the foundation of our economy, modernize health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society, and transform our tax code to reward work over wealth. Ben's expert analysis has been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, and other national news outlets.
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