Clearly they felt the risk outweighed the relevance of a $2 trillion dollar math error. Here's an explanation seemingly from S&P: Quote: Standard & Poor’s Clarifies Assumption Used On Discretionary Spending Growth .............In the near term horizon, by 2015, the U.S. net general government debt with the new assumptions were projected to be $14.5 trillion (79% of 2015 GDP) ........ S&P Explains Why The "$2 Trillion Error" Is Irrelevant | ZeroHedge