Standard & Poor's, a global credit rating agency, recently downgraded ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥'s rating from AAA to AA+. Bob Ascah, Fellow of The Institute for Public Economics at the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥, worked in the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Treasury Department in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and had frequent contact with rating agency personnel. Dr. Ascah explores the implications of the downgrade for ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ in an interview, and in a column for the .