(photo credit: striatic)

Well, that pesky federal deficit has finally caught up with us. Standard & Poor’s, a credit rating agency that basically judges how risky (or safe) it is to invest in a country, has officially said that the United States’s economic shenanigans may end up costing it its pristine AAA credit rating. (That’s three A’s, so you know it’s extra awesome.) The main reason? Washington’s seeming inability to agree on a plan to reduce the deficit.

S&P didn’t actually downgrade America’s credit rating, but it did change its “outlook” from “stable” to “negative.” This is basically a shot across the bow, or a warning from your mother that if you keep hanging out with those corner boys all you’ll get is a reputation.

This is kind of a big deal. If the U.S. is downgraded (and according to S&P is could be within three years), we’ll be out-credited by France. And foreign investors might be less interested in buying Treasury bonds, which would cut off an important source of income for the government. Which might result in more cuts to services like health care, education, and, you know, repairing roads.

Let’s see where we are in two years. In the meantime, how do you think you would do in S&P’s eyes?

Can you weather the credit storm?