Chicken or egg?

Which is more important – the country’s credit rating or managing our way out of the recession?

It’s a bit like the question of whether the chicken or egg came first. 

Getting a credit rating downgrade will make it harder to manage our way out of the recession and not managing our way out of the recession will result in a credit rating downgrade.

To mangle the metaphor – if you kill the chicken you don’t get eggs and if you scramble the eggs you don’t get chickens.