Boehner: Obama, Democrats Caused Downgrade

House Speaker John Boehner says President Obama and the Democrats share all the blame for the recent downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, according to The Hill. Boehner told House GOP members in a conference call Tuesday that if Democrats had joined with Republicans in passing the GOP budget, which the House passed in April, "it's unlikely anyone would be talking about the United States being downgraded today."

Boehner said that without passing bold reforms addressing entitlement spending, it was all but certain that the downgrade would happen.

"S&P said in its own report Friday that entitlement reform is the key to long-term financial stability. We passed a budget through the House in April that includes entitlement reform, and cuts more than $6 trillion. The Democrat-controlled Senate and President Obama have prevented most of those reforms from happening. And that's why we have a downgrade," Boehner said in an excerpt of his prepared remarks obtained by The Hill.

He blamed Obama for creating the situation, even as the president and Democrats publicly pointed fingers at the Tea Party.

"The President and the Democratic leadership in Washington are trying to blame the tea party, because they know this downgrade is on [the
Democrats]. When we took the bold step of proposing entitlement reforms, they reacted not by embracing them and joining us, but by demonizing those proposals for political gain," Boehner said.