Standard & Poor's Ratings Services upgraded Ohio's debt rating just one day after it put the United States on "creditwatch negative" on what it calls a rising risk of policy stalemate in the debt limit negotiations.
For Ohio, the rating was revised from "negative" to "stable" after Gov. John Kasich signed a new budget the ratings agency says will essentially balance the state's finances for the next two years. S&P also said Ohio is experiencing a modest economic recovery which has stabilized revenue.
In making the upgrade, the agency also assigned a "AA+" long-term rating to Ohio's $416.75 million general obligation bonds... "After a significant decline through the recession, Ohio's economy is steadily recovering," according to S&P's statement issued Friday.
The agency listed factors such as Ohio's unemployment rate has stabilized and fallen to 8.6 percent through May 2011 from a peak of 11 percent in March 2010. The also state experienced positive employment growth in 2010 and through the first quarter of 2011...
In S&P's statement Thursday about the U.S., it said it placed its 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term sovereign credit ratings on "CreditWatch with negative implications."
The action means there is a "substantial likelihood of it taking a rating action within the next 90 days." ...
Unlike President Obama, Kasich actually took proactive steps to reduce the size of Ohio's government and improve business conditions for the private sector. Plus he didn't blame his predecessor, demonize his political opponents, or say "I" and "me" all the time.
Linked by: Instapundit, Weasel Zippers and Memeorandum. Thanks!
4 comments:
It takes a Republican governor to improve the economics of a state as long as the governor is loyal to conservativ/libertarian economic principles.
Is this not one of those same agencies that gave the same high ratings to all those real estate backed investements whose spectacular failures have created the calamitious economic problems that we are all now witnessing? It is a bit difficult to take any of these people seroiusly considering their recent past records. I am always amused when they dole out these positve and negative ratings. Especially as it relates to govt investment instruments, there is just a whiff of political consideration more than economic ones. A tax and spending cut will always garner positive rating. Spending on things(i.e infrastructure, education and health) that will in the long run actually help economic activities almost always gets a negative ratings. What does it even mean at this point? Can one actually base ones investement strategy on the pronoucements of these agencies? It will be nice to have institutions (preferably new ones) who does these ratings on purely economic basis without the baggage associated with the current group.
Having a majority Republican House and Senate helped the Governor greatly too. Looking forward to finally making some progress here after years of Democrat mismanagement. The same is needed at the Federal level now!
wouldn't it be funny if Nero the Zero actually forged Kasich's signature for some more credit cards for the country?
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