S& P's Beers: It was our duty to downgrade the U.S.

By Walter Brandimarte | Reuters  –  23 minutes ago

" We take our responsibilities very seriously, and if at the end of our analysis the committee concludes that a rating isn't where we believe it should be, it's our duty to make that call," David Beers told Reuters in an interview.

Government sources have also accused the agency of making a $2 trillion error in its calculations about U.S. finances, and later removing that number from its estimates while sticking to its plan to cut the U.S. credit rating.

Beers, who is the head of sovereign ratings at S& P, acknowledged that the agency's decision was highly influenced by a change in Washington's " political dynamics" that hampered members of Congress from reaching a more comprehensive plan to cut the deficit.

" From the standpoint of fiscal policy, the process has weakened and became less predictable than it was," he said

Any change in those calculations would have been taken into consideration by S& P's committee before its rating decision was made public, Beers said.

Beers said one contributing element to the decision was the downward revision of U.S. GDP numbers a week ago. The data showed that the U.S. economy almost stalled in the first half of the year.

" The recession was deeper than what everybody thought a year ago and we think that this raises the possibility that the recovery will continue to be weak."