Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, says polarization and recent showdowns over the debt limit and government funding have hurt the United States' credit rating.
The rating agency cited a "steady deterioration in standards of governance" over recent decades, which Moore said he has experienced firsthand as congressional leaders engage in "brinkmanship" around the debt ceiling and budget talks.
"I remember having these conversations leading up to the debt ceiling all spring, and it's frustrating when you can see the potential of what's going to happen — you know about it for months — and we still sort of do the same thing over and over again," he said."This concept of brinkmanship is one of the most frustrating things that I have to deal with with respect to all fiscal matters," he said.
But much of the discussions around spending that have led to government shutdowns in recent years have centered on a relatively small amount of the federal budget, he said. "What we actually haggle over when you get to a potential government shutdown is, I don't know, $40 to $50 billion of a $6 trillion budget," he said. "We don't have adults in the room back in Washington really addressing the major issues."
One of those major issues is the growing amount of interest paid on the nation's more than $32 trillion debt, he said, which totaled a
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