If there was ever any doubt that President Biden has made a pig’s breakfast out of the economy, renowned credit-rating agency Fitch just downgraded America.

Fitch Ratings dropped U.S.. long-term debt one notch from AAA to AA+, citing “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance…”

You can stump for Bidenomics all you want, you can declare that a trillion-dollar spend will cost nothing, but you can’t fool a credit agency.

Fitch called out rising government deficit, which forecasting a jump to 6.3% of GDP in 2023, from 3.7%  in 2022.

We know how we got here, it just comes as a surprise to most on Capitol Hill. There was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $500 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the $280 billion Chips Act. It adds up – disaster.

There was pushback, the Congressional Budget Office sounded the alarm on the Inflation Reduction Act in particular, saying it wouldn’t do anything to solve the problem, and instead make it worse.

Biden and Co. may have heard the alarm, but they put a pillow over it.

They insist everything’s fine.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Fitch’s downgrade is  “entirely unwarranted,” and  “puzzling in light of the economic strength we see in the United States…”

A soaring deficit is not economic strength. It’s a ticking time bomb.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has been on Team Pushback for a while, said Thursday that the Fitch downgrade was a “historic failure of leadership by both political parties and the executive branch.”

As The Hill reported, Manchin had plenty of blame to pass around, citing the inability of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and Biden to make significant progress in addressing the nation’s $32 trillion debt.

“The credit agency specifically cited the decline in governance, erosion of cooperation in the federal government and ballooning national debt when making the determination to lower our credit rating,” Manchin said. “This is a stark warning that cannot be ignored. We must act now to fully fund the government and address our national debt before we wake up to a future where America’s superpower status is in jeopardy and we have lost the confidence of our allies around the world.”

Manchin said lawmakers and the president have the chance to improve the nation’s fiscal outlook with the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year approaching.

“Now, more than ever, it is time for elected leaders from both parties to work together and send a clear message to the world that we will take the necessary fiscal and budgetary steps to restore our credit rating and keep America’s economy strong for this generation and the next,” Manchin said.

Those are high hopes, especially in an election year. The sticking point for Biden and Congress working to solve a problem is admitting that there is one, which is not on message for the president’s re-election bid.

That would take real leadership to pull off. We’re not getting our hopes up.