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From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

America's credit rating gets a downgrade as several House Republicans from Blue States.

Threaten to hold up a GOP tax bill unless it expands the deduction for state and local taxes paid.

Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with The Wall Street Journal.

We are joined today by my colleagues, columnist Kim Strassel and editorial board member,

Manet Uquay-Buruwa.

On Tuesday, Fitch ratings, the rating agency said it was downgrading U.S. debt from AAA to AA+.

And here's a response from the Biden administration, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Fitch's decision is puzzling in light of the economic strength we see in the United States.

I strongly disagree with Fitch's decision, and I believe it is entirely unwarranted.

Its flawed assessment is based on outdated data and fails to reflect improvements across a range of indicators,

including those related to governance that we've seen over the past two and a half years.

Kim, what do you make of that response, and what did Fitch actually say when it announced this downgrade?

Well, I don't know where Janet Yellen has been living for the last few years,

or even the fast few decades, because this has been coming for a long time.

Look, we had another such moment back in 2011, back at that moment when we were having a clash

between former House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama over a debt ceiling deal,

but at that point, Standard and Poor's dropped its AAA rating,

...