Why is the US’ credit rating so exceptional despite the amount of debt it takes on?

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I’m a United States citizen. Moody gives the US a AA+ credit rating (it was downgraded from AAA in 2011).

How can this be, despite the substantial amount of debt the US holds that only continues to grow?

Is it GDP, defense capabilities, the dollar being the de facto currency almost worldwide? A combination of these? Or is there another huge factor(s) I am missing?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

>How can this be, despite the substantial amount of debt the US holds that only continues to grow?

Credit rating is based on their odds of repaying. The U.S. has never missed a payment, and is very reasonably able to repay it (yes, this is related to things like GDP. Basically, GDP roughly correlates to tax income, or potential tax income (in principle the U.S. could raise taxes). So the U.S. government has a clear revenue stream). While the debt is high in nominal terms, it’s not so high that the U.S. will ever struggle to pay it back from tax revenue. And it’s unlikely that tax revenue will ever dry up enough to put that at risk. Even if the economy has a downturn for a bit, it’ll weather it

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