Your views on the Dem's negotiating stance notwithstanding, the S&P merely identified the state of affairs, they do not care which route is selected for deficit reduction only that from a political standpoint that reduction is necessary for us to keep our rating and improbable given the current stances. You choose to consider this condemnation of the GOP and support for the Dems, basically off a single half of a sentence. You call the debt ceiling vote regular and routine for instance, which is true, but that is a meaningless strawman, we've had a negative outlook for a while pretty much because we've been raising the debt ceiling a bunch, or rather, running with a big deficit. S&P does not really care about debt ceilings, seeing as the US is about the only place that actually has one, nor do they give a damn about whether the deficit is reduced by mass tax increases or austerity measures or both or a thousand tons of gold nuggets being found in a national park's riverbed. They want the deficit reduced, because they see it endangering our reliability to pay bonds, that's it, totally it. The brinksmanship comments and everything of that vein are strictly relevant because they show, to S&P, that no deal is likely to be struck in the near future that seriously reduces debt, so they went ahead with the downgrade everyone has been discussing for years and taken as a near certainty for months. You, and snoop I guess, are simply choosing to read "Bob and John just keep arguing" as "Bob is argumentative" and it seems Trzaska wants to read it as "John is argumentative". Personally I think Bob and John are argumentative, and that's a good thing but screws are rating right now, such is life.