Judge for yourself.  This is the actual language.
Standard And Poors Report.

Some highlights.  That I think represent the tone and bring out the points the media as usual is missing.

My take, S&P reduced the rating because:

1) Recent events in Washington have left S&P doubtful congress can act effectively to deal with the financial problems facing the country.

2) The recent agreement is not adequate.

3) The timing of the next election makes it unlikely a significant agreement will be reached, the debt issue will be worse and require tougher measures.

4) Political  leaders have shown no intention of tackling Medicare and Medicate or

other entitlements programs.

5) S&P takes no position of what mixture of revenue raising or spending cuts is appropriate.

From the report.

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed.

The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.

Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures.

It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal  sustainability. Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt burden in a manner consistent with a ‘AAA’ rating and with ‘AAA’ rated sovereign peers.

In our view, the difficulty in framing a consensus on fiscal policy weakens the government’s ability to manage public finances and diverts attention from the debate over how to achieve more balanced and dynamic economic growth in an era of fiscal stringency and private-sector deleveraging (ibid). A new political consensus might (or might not) emerge after the 2012 elections, but we believe that by then, the government debt burden will likely be higher, the needed medium-term fiscal adjustment potentially greater, and the inflection point on the U.S. population’s demographics and other age-related spending drivers closer at hand (see “Global Aging 2011: In The U.S., Going Gray Will Likely Cost Even More Green, Now,” June 21, 2011).

Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.’s finances on a sustainable footing.  The act calls for as much as $2.4 trillion of reductions in expenditure growth over the 10 years through 2021. These cuts will be implemented in two steps: the $917 billion agreed to initially, followed by an additional $1.5 trillion that the newly formed Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is supposed to recommend by November 2011. The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

Something I’ve said for years, the cost of shipping is considerable.  Not to mention the cost of oversight of overseas facilities. 

….He said when NCR looked at the cost of shipping products that weigh more than a ton each, as well as the need to have the plant close to the engineering staff and customers in order to constantly improve the machines, it decided to build the Georgia plant.

 NCR (NCR, Fortune 500) has already hired about 500 workers to build ATM machines and self-service checkout systems at a Columbus, Ga., plant, and it plans to add another 370 jobs by 2014, building products that were formerly produced at plants in China, Hungary and Brazil.

This trend of reshoring or insourcing is likely to grow in the coming years, as the cost gap between building overseas and building at home narrows. It’s an encouraging sign in a job market where hiring has stalled in recent months.

Sign in is at 6:30 PM.  Voting is expected at 7:00 PM.

Will be a paper ballot.

THE NEXT BUDGET VOTE WILL BE ON JUNE 15TH

 AT THE SCHOOL, SIGN IN STARTS AT 6:30pm.

The third budget presented will look a lot like the 2nd, identical. 

The BOF decided to re-present the 2nd budget with the hopes that a better explanation of the budget will aid in its passage.

So, show up on June 15th  25th at the Marlborough Elementary School and vote.

A full detail of the budget can be downloaded from the town website. Click here.

From the Director of The Congressional Budget Office

Today, you’re in charge of the nation’s finances. Some of your options have more short-term savings and some have more long-term savings. When you have closed the budget gaps for both 2015 and 2030, you are done. Make your own plan, then share it online.

Didn't work so well did it? But we are on the hook for TRILLIONS in debt.

The new unemployment data have been released and they don’t paint a pretty picture — literally and figuratively.

The figure below is all we need to know about the success of President Obama’s big-government policies. The lower, solid line is from a White House report in early 2009 and it shows the level of unemployment the Administration said we would experience if the so-called stimulus was adopted. The darker dots show the actual monthly unemployment rate. At what point will the beltway politicians concede that making government bigger is not a recipe for prosperity?

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. The Obama White House imposed an $800-billion plus faux stimulus on the economy (actually more than $1 trillion if additional interest costs are included). They’ve also passed all sorts of additional legislation, most of which have been referred to as jobs bills. Yet the unemployment situation is stagnant and the economy is far weaker than is normally the case when pulling out of a downturn.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ’obstructing sidewalk traffic.’

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)  They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ’Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail.  Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with terrible vermin.

(Alice Paul)  When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because — why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.) Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York) All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.  Sometimes it was inconvenient.

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ’What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’ HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history; social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

Conferring over ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at National Woman’s Party  headquarters, Jackson Place, Washington, D.C. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’  Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn.) Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, ‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

History is being made.

Submitted by Katherine Winans

Lifted from Citizens Voice

Looking at McMahon and Simmons, Republican voters say:
• 41 – 33 percent that McMahon has the best character and personality to be a U.S. Senator;
• 39 – 33 percent that Simmons is most qualified to be a Senator;
• 42 – 27 percent that they most agree with McMahon on key issues;
• 45 – 25 percent that they most agree with McMahon’s positions on the economy and jobs;
• 54 – 25 percent that McMahon is best able to win the general election.

Quinnipiac University Poll/August 4, 2010

Among registered voters, Blumenthal leads Simmons 54 – 35 percent and tops Schiff
57 – 30 percent.

Democrats back Blumenthal over McMahon 82 – 11 percent while Republicans back
McMahon 71 – 18 percent.

“While Blumenthal has lost independent voter support, his support among Republicans is
at 18 percent,” Schwartz said.

Blumenthal gets a 57 – 30 percent favorability rating from Connecticut voters, compared
to 60 – 28 percent July 16.

McMahon’s 43 – 37 percent favorability rating is unchanged.

From July 28 – August 2, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,299 Connecticut registered
voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points. Also from July 29 – August 2,