John Kerry left little doubt where Democrats plan on laying the blame for Standard and Poor's deciding to downgrade our credit rating -- squarely on the laps of those "tea party" Republicans in the House who were actually saying default would be acceptable.
From TPM -- Kerry Slams ‘Tea Party Downgrade’:
Senator John Kerry (D-MA), appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, blamed Republicans and in particular Tea Party intransigence for the unprecedented S&P downgrade of U.S. credit from AAA to AA+.
"I believe this is without question the Tea Party downgrade," he said. "This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered the will of even many of Republicans in the United States Senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal."
Kerry intimated that the "grand bargain" that President Obama initially negotiated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), a package of larger spending cuts and revenue increases, was scuttled by a smaller group of Republicans who were not willing to negotiate at any cost.
"There were some people in the Republican party - and Mitch McConnell even admitted this - who wanted to default, Kerry said. "He said there were people in his party who were willing to shoot the hostage. In the end they found that the hostage was worth ransoming." Read on...
It looks like the Democrats got on the same page with their talking points for the day since David Axelrod said the exact same thing on Face the Nation today.
