DC Loses Its Aaa Credit Rating From Moody's Amid DOGE Job Cuts

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Bloomberg

April 24, 2025 at 9:13 AM EDT


Moody’s Ratings downgraded the District of Columbia on Wednesday, causing the nation’s capital to lose its Aaa credit rating as the Trump administration continues to slash federal jobs.

The ratings firm said its downgrade reflects mounting pressures from federal funding cuts, a reduced government workforce and ongoing weakness in commercial real estate. Moody’s changed the rating to Aa1 and revised its outlook to negative.

The district estimates it will lose as many as 40,000 federal jobs, or 21% of its federal workforce. These cuts will “erode the stability that the institutional presence of the federal government has historically had on the District’s economy,” according to a release on Wednesday.

“This rating change is not the result of a degradation of the District’s strong governance and effective fiscal management practices,” Glen Lee, the district’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “Rather, it stems from broader federal decisions regarding its workforce and spending, and economic trends that are beyond the District’s control and are having a disproportionate impact on the local economy,” Lee said.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-24/dc-loses-its-aaa-credit-rating-from-moody-s-amid-doge-job-cuts?srnd=phx-politics

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No paywall (gift)

[enough]

1. Mission accomplished

[sheshe2]

2. Dayum!

Not sure if I can handle much more of the Making America Great Again!

Summertime, time, time
Child, the living's easy
Fish are jumping out
And the cotton, Lord
Cotton's high, Lord, so high

[Karasu]

3. That sure didn't take long. LOL

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Maddow Blog-Why the latest downgrade of the U.S. credit rating is an embarrassment for Republicans

In 2011, the GOP was responsible for a U.S. credit rating downgrade. In 2023, it happened again. And in 2025, Republicans are again to blame.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/latest-downgrade-us-credit-rating-embarrassment-republicans-rcna207652

There is still one other ratings agency, however, that hadn’t downgraded the nation’s credit rating — at least, that is, until last week. NBC News reported:

Moody’s Ratings cut the United States’ sovereign credit rating down a notch to Aa1 from the Aaa, the highest possible, citing the growing burden of financing the federal government’s budget deficit and the rising cost of rolling over existing debt amid high interest rates.

In terms of the practical economic impact, neither the 2011 nor the 2023 downgrades did meaningful harm, though as NBC News’ report added, the decision from Moody’s might end up lifting the yield that investors demand in order to buy U.S. Treasury debt and could dampen sentiment toward owning U.S. assets. Time will tell.

But in terms of the political impact, Donald Trump’s White House tried to blame Biden for the developments — a go-to move for this administration — despite the fact that deficits exploded during Trump’s first term and were far smaller under Biden.

Even more interesting, however, was the reaction from House Speaker Mike Johnson. The New York Times noted:

In his appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ Speaker Mike Johnson tried to spin Moody’s recent downgrading of U.S. credit worthiness away from House Republicans’ multi-trillion-dollar spending package and recast it as a product of ‘the Biden spending spree.’ He argued that the inferior credit rating was evidence that ‘emphasizes the very need for the legislation we’re talking about.’

.....This need not be complicated. Moody’s downgraded the United States because of the country’s national debt and fiscal future. The GOP’s reconciliation bill, filled with massive tax breaks, would add nearly $3 trillion to projected budget deficits over the next decade. (As for the idea that there was a “Biden spending spree,” now seems like a good time to remind everyone that government spending has gone up, not down, since Donald Trump returned to power.)

In other words, the fiscal problem that led to the downgrade would get worse because of the Republican’s megabill, which is the opposite of the line GOP leaders have brought to the public.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. And this OP was the city of Washington D.C. downgrade

they did the whole country 3 weeks later!