Congress must pass any legislation, and with a Republican House and Democratic Senate, only a bi-partisan bill would have any chance of passing, and we saw how well that worked this time.

"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the [debt ceiling deal]. - Excerpt from Standard and Poors statement reducing America bond rating.