Did White House Try To Bully S&P?

Fiscal Policy: Did the White House try to strong-arm Standard & Poor's into not dropping the federal government's credit rating? At the very least, it appears the administration wanted to hide the mess it's making worse.

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that the White House "privately urged Standard & Poor's in recent weeks not to lower its outlook on the United States — a suggestion the ratings agency ignored Monday, two people familiar with the matter said."

This is interesting, given that this same White House held a conference last month to draw attention to, and crack down on, bullying — which of course was one of the Founding Fathers' prime concerns when they drew up our federal system.

According to the Post, "Treasury officials told S&P analysts that they were underestimating the ability of politicians in Washington to fashion a compromise to curb deficits" and argued that a ratings change wasn't needed "because the debt was manageable and the administration had a viable plan in the works."

In other words, the administration told S&P to trust the very institution that has created the federal debt problem and did nothing to stop the most predictable economic crisis in our history, if we may borrow a few sharp words from Rep. Paul Ryan.

What the White House should have been saying is that no one, from ratings agencies to wheat farmers in Kansas to Fortune 500 CEOs, should ever underestimate politicians' ability to continue to make the wrong policy choices.

It's no surprise that the White House would try to hide its poor stewardship of the public fisc in order to continue its perverse policies that have only made the problem worse.

It would at least be consistent. As we noted last Tuesday, the administration is reportedly engaged in a disinformation campaign to cover up the depth of the burden that's been dumped on American families.

The fiction is found on the White House's Federal Tax Receipt website. It says a family of three earning $50,000 a year pays a mere $19 in interest on the national debt.

Whether it's an honest mistake or a cynical fabrication, the administration's claim is still wrong.

As Neil Munro of the Daily Caller has reported, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that interest payments cost the federal government $414 billion in 2010, "or $4,140 for a family of three, or 218 times more than the White House website shows."

To S&P's credit, it stood up to the pressure from the executive branch.

But as we said before, the country doesn't need a ratings agency to know that an aggressively advancing, Stage 4 government threatens America's future.

The administration wasted time and resources leaning on a private-sector company.

It should have been addressing Washington's spending problem instead. But that's a much tougher job, and one that Democrats don't want to do anyway. They'd rather hide the fiscal wreckage than deal with it.