Credit Rating Quotes

Politics thrives on simple, clean messages, something that played to Obama's advantage in 2008. Stagnant unemployment and the loss of America's AAA rating are as simple and tough as they come. This is the economy on Obama's watch, and there's no one left to blame.

The single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

To Wall Street, a firm like BP isn't just a profitable energy company with lots of assets like oil rigs and pipelines and gas stations - it's also a corporation that routinely borrows hundreds of millions of dollars to keep its business up and running.

I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.

Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up; we would have been rated BBB.

Under Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in 'credit-deprived' areas. Banks were effectively rewarded for throwing out sound underwriting standards and writing loans to those who were at high risk of defaulting.

There is a limit to how much the United States Treasury can borrow.

Massive debts owed to foreign creditors weaken our global influence and threaten high inflation and steep tax increases for our children and grandchildren.

To investors, job creation is a second-order effect. Market participants care first about interest rates, exchange rates, bond prices and the one great factor that affects all three: the long-term solvency of a bond company called the U.S. government.

For the next three years, we're going to see different economies work out different problems. For European economies, especially Greece, it would be through default.

I'm the treasurer of the state of Ohio, where, when the United States credit rating was downgraded for the first time in American history, and 14 government funds around the country were downgraded, we earned the highest rating we could earn on our $4 billion investment fund.

Here's the perversity of Wall Street's psychology: The more Wall Street is convinced that Washington will act rationally and raise the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour, the less pressure there will be on lawmakers to reach an agreement. That will make it more likely a deal isn't reached.

Historically, the minority party in Congress votes against raising the debt limit, forcing the majority party to whip its members into casting politically painful votes in favor.

If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.

The interest on our debt is going to collapse this country.

No nation can miss interest or principle payments without some negative impact on its credit standing.

I mean, Iceland is Iceland. It can't do damage to anybody unless you're Icelandic. But the United States can drag down the entire western economy. And I think what we are seeing is simply a reflection of reality. This is not, I'm sorry, but this is not a AAA nation.

The rating agencies historically actually did a pretty good job rating regular bonds.

If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.

The Greeks do not have the option of borrowing because nobody will lend to them.

The debt ceiling at some point has to be raised. I don't think there's anybody that questions the fact that if we ended up getting in a situation where the U.S. government was sending out IOUs like the state of California did at one point, that ends up creating quite a brand problem for our country.

We're only one of a few states that have maintained our Triple-A bond rating from the major rating agencies.

Right now, a majority of the debt is owed to foreign interests, Japan being the largest purchaser of government debt today, soon to be surpassed by China as the number one purchaser of our debt in this Nation.

Accessing capital to start a business can be a daunting process, especially for entrepreneurs who start out with a great idea, but have no real familiarity with the business world.

Ratings agencies are the glue that ostensibly holds the entire financial industry together.