As the assessment of South Carolina's lower credit rating established by Standard and Poor's Rating Service begins to sink in, elected officials have made plenty of political hay by pointing fingers.

Legislators blame the governor; he blames them. The executive and legislative branches argued from January through early June about issues that could affect the state's credit rating. Lawmakers blamed Gov. Mark Sanford for wanting to cut the state's top income rate, which would have cut $1 billion in revenue. Sanford blamed lawmakers for not repaying all the money borrowed from the state's trust funds.

Standard and Poor's based its decision to lower the state's rating from AAA to AA-plus on the growing percentage of South Carolinians out of work. State Treasurer Grady Patterson rightly points out that the issue boils down to "jobs, jobs, jobs."

The credit rating for a state operates just like that of an individual. The better the rating, the lower interest rate the state pays. Fewer working South Carolinians means less tax revenue to pay the higher interest rates.

In May, the state unemployment rate was 6.3 percent, while the national average was 5.1 percent.

Low interest rates in general and the experience of other states may be a blessing to South Carolina. According to the Associated Press, Tennessee was the last state to slip from the top rating. Arturo Perez, a financial analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, told the AP that the situation that resulted in Tennessee hadn't been "as bad as people feared."

But that doesn't mean the legislature and the governor get a free ride. They have to ensure the problem doesn't get worse. They have to work on additional budget and tax reform plans to preserve the state's fiscal integrity.

A dip in the rating could mean that borrowing large sums of money could cost taxpayers in South Carolina millions more, which is the same thing as a de facto tax increase.

The last time South Carolina lost its top rating, it took 3 1/2 years to earn it back. But it shouldn't take that long this go-round. The governor and lawmakers have the rest of the summer and the fall to work out their plans to reform budgeting, to reform taxation and to bring more jobs to the state.

Instead of pointing fingers, they should work together to solve the problem.