Thanks, lunatic fringe!

Fitch Ratings put the United States' "AAA" credit rating under "rating watch negative" on Tuesday, according to a press release.More from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Fitch credit rating agency has warned that it is reviewing the U.S. government's AAA credit rating for a possible downgrade, citing Thursday's looming deadline to increase the nation's borrowing limit.Fitch has placed the U.S. credit rating on negative watch, a step that would precede an actual downgrade. The agency said it expects to conclude its review within the next six months. Fitch says it expects the debt limit will be raised soon, but adds, "the political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. default."Fitch is one of the three leading U.S. credit ratings agencies, along with Standard & Poor's and Moody's. S&P downgraded U.S. long-term debt to "AA" in August 2011.

Just what we need, after finally beginning to come back form the George Bush economic crash. Felix Salmon says that the default has already begun.

The global faith in US institutions has already been undermined. The mechanism by which catastrophe would arise has already been set into motion. And as a result, economic growth in both the US and the rest of the world will be lower than it should be. Unemployment will be higher. Social unrest will be more destructive. These things aren’t as bad now as they would be if we actually got to a point of payment default. …

While debt default is undoubtedly the worst of all possible worlds, then, the bonkers level of Washington dysfunction on display right now is nearly as bad. Every day that goes past is a day where trust and faith in the US government is evaporating — and once it has evaporated, it will never return. The Republicans in the House have already managed to inflict significant, lasting damage to the US and the global economy — even if they were to pass a completely clean bill tomorrow morning, which they won’t. The default has already started, and is already causing real harm. The only question is how much worse it’s going to get.

Fox News will probably go all Benghazi on President Obama again by stipulating that any negative impact we might face because of the government shutdown could have been avoided if only he would have been kind to the American people and delayed the ACA for a year.