FINANCIAL NEWS: Triple A-rated US states and local governments do not face automatic downgrades after Standard & Poor’s historic move last week to strip the US sovereign of its top-notch status, the rating agency said.
Steven Murphy, head of US state and local ratings at S&P, said the agency would instead decide later this year whether to downgrade states and local governments based on measures to reduce federal budget deficits.
“The federal spending reduction plan is key to how we will look at the ratings going forward – what programmes will be cut, where, geographically, [the cuts] will be and the time frame,” Mr Murphy said… (more)
