earlier this week, the credit rating agency Moody’s warned that five states — Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee — could have their credit downgraded if the federal government’s credit rating goes down, “because their dependence on federal revenue makes them vulnerable to a U.S. credit cut.” In response, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) urged Congress to come to a debt ceiling compromise “immediately“:
“There’s got to be a compromise, I’m not going to tell them how to do it. I’d suggest they try spending cuts — everybody knows they’re spending too much,” McDonnell said on MSNBC. “But they’ve got to get this done immediately or the uncertainty for the business community is going to be just devastating to our country.”
[...]
But McDonnell was not always so keen on Congress reaching a compromise. In fact, just a few months ago, he told the ultra-conservative Human Events that the debt ceiling shouldn’t be raised at all, unless Republicans received all their demands:
“The only way that it is appropriate to increase the debt limit,” McDonnell told HUMAN EVENTS, “is if there is a tangible, written, irreversible set of structural reforms in spending in the United States government that makes sure we are on a downward trajectory in spending that will get us to a balanced budget much farther.”
“If we don’t achieve those goals, then I don’t see any gain in increasing the debt limit.”
