richard wolffe is at the white house now. so what is the white house reaction to this threat about s&p saying, look, you could lose what is the gold standard of credit ratings? reporter: what that s saying is this reinforces what they have been saying for some time now, you cannot mess with the financial markets in talking about not raising the debt ceiling. that s one piece of it, but at the same time, they re having to say they are serious about discussing some longer term deficit problem, which deals with entitlement spending. in the white house s view, they re trying to frame it as shared responsibility. this needs to be a burden borne by the wealthiest as well as people getting things like medicare and medicaid. they re also having to deal with rising gas prices at the same time. difficult balancing act in talking about what voters want to hear, what the financial markets want to hear and playing this washington game of these negotiations that are about to begin. b
richard woolf, thank you. let s look at wall street now where stocks are rebounding a bit after plummeting to their lowest level in a month on news that the s&p is willing to change the long-term outlook on u.s. debt from stable to negative. and here it is. the dow jones industrials up, just 17 points on the day. the s&p up slightly. a green arrow, better than yesterday. melissa francis joins me now. when we re talking about the nation s credit rating, what does that really mean for americans? well, there are a lot of different implications for this. it basically would mean if the debt was downgraded, it would make it harder and more expensive for the u.s. government to borrow. that means they would either need to spend less and cut services, or they would have to raise taxes in order to make up for that difference. it means a slower economy if either thing really happens. that means that it is going to be fewer jobs over the long-term, some people likened it more of a european typ