City blames Republicans for delay on US debt
REPUBLICAN members of the US House of Representatives are to blame for the difficulty in agreeing a deal on raising the country’s debt ceiling, according to members of the City A.M./PoliticsHome.com Voice of the City Panel.
Forty-one-and-a-half per cent of respondents said that Republicans in Congress were most to blame for the delay in reaching an agreement, with 38 per cent blaming President Barack Obama and the Republicans equally.
An overwhelming 95 per cent of those surveyed also felt that the row had damaged the reputation of the US as a financially responsible economy, with more than half (58 per cent) saying that the damage has been “severe” or “quite severe”.
The threat to the world economy was also seen as significant by our panel, with 95 per cent of respondents seeing risk to global markets from the US debt crisis – and 72 per cent seeing the threat as “quite severe” or “severe”.
While Obama has vetoed any proposals that include tax increases in the US, 79.5 per cent of our panel felt that tax hikes should form part of the compromise.