President Barack Obama essentially dismissed the first-ever downgrade of the US's credit rating. His comments were made in an effort to reassure investors and the public that the nation's leaders need only show more "common sense and compromise" to tame a staggering accumulation of debt.

President Barack Obama speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Aug. 8, 2011.

Obama said, "With respect to debt, our problem is not confidence in our credit, the markets continue to reaffirm our credit as among the world's safest. Our challenge is the need to tackle our deficits over the long-term. Markets will rise and fall but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple A country."