I’d be willing to bet most people have not been paying attention to politics this summer. Why would you? What happens in Washington is unlikely to affect the sunshine on the deck of your apartment complex’s pool.

But it was pretty impossible to avoid hearing about the debt ceiling and the country’s credit rating.

The whole thing can be confusing, but think of the debt ceiling as the limit on the country’s credit card, an arbitrary number determined by congress that represents the amount the country can go into debt.

This number has been raised frequently in the past, and the United States has always been able to pay it off. Soon, however, if Congress keeps raising that number, it may not be able to pay that off, sending the country further into debt.

Just like people, every country also has a credit rating (haven’t you seen those commercials?). This number determines whether or not countries can take out loans, and the interest they pay on them. Outside firms determine these ratings. The United States has always been rated the highest rating, AAA.

After a long political battle this summer, Congress passed the largest debt reduction bill in our country’s history in a bipartisan compromise.

The truth is that it still isn’t enough. That’s why one of the credit firms, Standard & Poor, downgraded the U.S. to an AA+ rating (An AA+ rating is like the shorter, balding guy in the hockey mask in those commercials, which is not good).There was panic that this would send us further into a recession. It hasn’t yet.

In fact, I think that the downgrade is actually a good thing.

The truth is that this country is almost broke and the government won’t be able to pay its bills if it continues spending more than it takes in. This credit downgrade has served as a wakeup call, and now politicians from both sides of the aisle are looking to cut spending.

One downgrade from one firm is unlikely to hurt us in the short term, but it might light enough of a fire under Washington politicians to do something before the other firms downgrade us as well. America needs to stop our out of control spending to get us back to that AAA rating, and maybe the downgrade is just what we need to make that happen.

Now you may be asking yourself “why should I care? What does it have to do with me? Well, like the electric bill, the United States’ debt can’t go unpaid too long. Eventually someone will have to pay for it plus interest, and it is likely to be our generation. Taxes will be raised on us to pay those bills off, and programs like Medicare and Social Security, which we are already paying into directly from our paychecks, will be sacrificed in order to pay those bills off. If the credit downgrade is what we need to prevent this from happening, then it truly is a blessing in disguise.