Conservatives strike back against ‘Tea Party downgrade’ label, call it ‘Obama downgrade’

In this image provided by CBS, White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod talks about tax cuts on CBS's Face the Nation in Washington Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010. (AP Photo/CBS, Chris Usher)

Tea partiers aren’t too happy with MoveOn.org, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod or Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry for labeling the first-ever downgrade of America’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s as the “tea party downgrade.”

FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe told The Daily Caller that liberals are using the slogan to distract Americans from the bad economic numbers he says President Obama’s policies have caused. “Well of course they want to say that,” Kibbe said of how the Obama administration is attempting to blame the tea party movement for the credit downgrade. “They don’t want to talk about how Obama’s fiscal policy led to this and 9.1 percent unemployment.”

Kibbe noted that Obama never provided his own debt plan and added that he believes it was Democrats and liberal Republicans who perpetuated the “out-of-control spending” that led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook for the first time in the nation’s history.

Let Freedom Ring executive director Alex Cortes said the reason his organization launched TheObamaDowngrade.com is to point out how it’s largely the president’s fault for the credit downgrade. Like Kibbe, Cortes says both political parties are responsible for overspending through the years. But, he argued, Republicans are the “only ones” who have put “serious reforms” on the table in recent months.

Cortes said he thinks Cut, Cap and Balance — which passed the House due to Republican support — was the only plan put forth that fit Standard & Poor’s criteria for averting a downgrade. He also argued that entitlement reform was essential in order to prevent future downgrades.

“It’s because of the tea party that we got any cuts whatsoever,” Cortes told TheDC. “The president requested a clean debt ceiling increase with no spending cuts or reforms. I think it’s clearly Obama’s downgrade and that’s what our campaign says.”