Threat of US credit downgrade looms over debt ceiling talks

By PAUL WISEMAN and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — With one of three major rating agencies warning that America’s AAA credit is at risk, the stakes are growing in the standoff in Washington over raising the nation’s debt limit. The rating agency Fitch has put the nation’s credit on “Rating Watch Negative,” which amounts to a warning that it might downgrade the U.S. credit as a result of the impasse. The government reached the $31.4 trillion debt limit in January, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has resorted to “extraordinary measures’’ since then to keep paying the bills. But Yellen has warned that Treasury will likely run out of money to meet all its obligations as soon as June 1, which is being described as the “X-date.”