STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
NPR's business news starts with a warning from Moody's.
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INSKEEP: Congress may have approved a bill that averted the crisis - the manufactured crisis known as the fiscal cliff - but the credit-rating agency Moody's is not patting lawmakers on the back. Moody's said this weeks' deficit reduction deal did not produce meaningful improvement to the issue at hand: the country's debt burden and economic output. Moody's warned that if improvements are not made, the agency could downgrade the U.S. credit rating.