https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downgrades-united-states-long-term-ratings-to-aa-from-aaa-outlook-stable-01-08-2023
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Ratings like that are essentially assessments of how like the person or organization borrowing money is to pay back the loan.
The higher the risk of someone not paying back their loan the higher the interest they need to pay on their loan.
Normally the US government is as safe as it gets.
If you lend the US government you can be almost 100% sure they will pay you back.
For that reason interest rates are low.
By downgrading the US from AAA to AA+ the people are admitting that they are no longer quite as sure as they were in the past that the US government will pay back the loans.
It is still very, very sure, but ever so slightly less so.
In other countries things like political instability, like coup attempts or failures of government to service all their debts on time are seen that it has become riskier to lend them money.
In the US the recurrent political grandstanding that almost leads to the government not paying their debt and the events of January 6, made some people ever so slightly worried, that at some point in the future the US might miss a payment.
Such concerns lead to downgrading the US from AAA to AA+. It makes lending the US money less attractive and means the US might need to pay higher interest rates when they take out loans.
Since the US is mostly funded by taxes, this in the end means that fucking around with the debt ceiling and the orderly transfer of power, costs the US taxpayer money.
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