Boehner: S&P sent Dems 'wake-up call'

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. House Speaker John Boehner called Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating "a wake-up call" for the Democratic Party.

The Ohio Republican said Friday his party has been willing to tackle the country's debt problem, The Hill reported.

"Republicans have listened to the voices of the American people and worked to bring the spending binge to a halt," he said in a statement. "Unfortunately, decades of reckless spending cannot be reversed immediately, especially when the Democrats who run Washington remain unwilling to make the tough choices required to put America on solid ground. It is my hope this wake-up call will convince Washington Democrats that they can no longer afford to tinker around the edges of our long-term debt problem."

S&P, when it changed its rating for U.S. treasury bonds from AAA to AA+, said both parties share in the blame. The agency said Republicans were most responsible for the "political brinksmanship" in the debt limit crisis that demonstrated the government has become "less stable, less effective and less predictable."