Washington: President Barack Obama on Monday essentially dismissed the first-ever downgrade of the US credit rating, reassuring investors and the public that the nation's leaders need only show more "common sense and compromise" to tame a staggering accumulation of debt.
Seeking to demonstrate command in a volatile economic climate, Obama said he hoped the decision by Standard & Poor's would at least give Congress a renewed sense of urgency to tackle debt problems. He said that must be done mainly by taking on the politically difficult issues of reforming taxes and entitlement programs in the coming months.
In his first public comments on the credit downgrade, which S&P announced Friday, Obama said Washington had the power to fix its own political dysfunction.
"Markets will rise and fall," he said. "But this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country."
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