Fitch downgraded the U.S. credit rating due to fiscal concerns, a deterioration in U.S governance, as well as political polarization reflected partly by the Jan. 6 insurrection, Richard Francis, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, told Reuters on Wednesday.

In a move that took investors by surprise, Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA on Tuesday, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-to-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills.

One of the world’s largest credit agencies announced on Tuesday that it was lowering the U.S.’ long-term credit rating from “AAA” to “AA+,” citing future fiscal uncertainty.

The agency downgraded the U.S. Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating following projections of fiscal deterioration over the next three years, according to a release from Fitch Ratings. Fitch points to a history of debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions from legislators, creating a deterioration in credit trustworthiness over the last 20 years.

U.S. President Joe Biden would veto Republican-backed defense, health and agriculture spending bills if he were presented with them, the White House said on Monday, alleging House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy was backing away from spending levels agreed to in a debt-limit deal.

McCarthy and House Republicans were pushing cuts the Biden administration could not accept, the White House said in a statement on Monday.

Less than two weeks after the end of the debt limit fight that Republicans said they started because they worried about government red ink, House Republicans moved a step closer to possibly adding as much as a trillion dollars more in debt through tax cuts.

The tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee late Tuesday approved a trio of bills that would extend or expand parts of the Trump tax cuts from 2017 and take back green energy tax cuts included in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Democrats in the House and Senate plan to introduce a bill Friday that would overhaul the debt-ceiling process, eager to capitalize on widespread anxiety in the party regarding the regular brinkmanship over the country’s borrowing limit.

The US House of Representatives has been forced to postpone all votes until next week – paralyzed by a revolt against its Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by ultra-conservative members of his own party.

The standoff between McCarthy and a hardline faction of his own Republican majority has forced the chamber into a holding pattern that looks likely to persist until at least Monday.

In a way, the revolt that bottled up the House agenda on Tuesday was not consequential because it stalled action on bills that were never likely to become law. But the unanswered question was whether it was a sign of a new reality in the 118th Congress that would shape how, and if, major bills get done.

After advisories throughout the day that the House would meet to vote on reconsidering a rule that was defeated on Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office said late in the afternoon there would be no votes on Wednesday.

House Republicans are struggling to reconcile a GOP rebellion of conservative hardliners with moderately conservative congressmen.

Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) became House speaker partly by empowering skeptical conservatives to force a no-confidence vote if he ever betrayed them.

Last week, McCarthy betrayed them, but so far the hard-liners haven’t moved to take McCarthy’s gavel away. Instead, on Tuesday a group of 10 Republicans voted against a procedural resolution setting up a series of votes on symbolic bills about gas stoves and regulations.

House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters the Republicans were “frustrated” with how the House had been operating.