How will debt ceiling agreement impact Tennessee?

Late last night, Congressional Republicans, the Senate Democratic Leadership, and President Obama appeared to have come to an agreement-in-principle on raising the national debt ceiling in return for the kind of spending cuts the Union needs to remain afloat fiscally. Federal House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told House Republicans last night that the GOP "got 98 percent of what we wanted." Some Republicans who are supportive of the plan point to the fact that while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is hinting that she may oppose the measure,and she isn't guaranteeing in the least that her caucus will go along, either. Further, the Democratic Party's Leftist fringe is already opposing the new arrangement, with members of the so-called "House Progressive Caucus" (socialists) saying that they won't be voting for the accord. The Congressional Black Caucus, which is more of an entitlement special-interest group than it is a forum for real representation for the African-American community in Congress, has officially referred to the debt ceiling compromise as "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich."

 

From a conservative perspective, there have to be some very good proposals in the new debt agreement for the Black Caucus to refer to it as a meal of the diabolical. At first glance, however, the agreement appears to leave the new Health Care Law virtually untouched, with Medicaid cuts being non-existant. That means that if Congress fails to act on the spending cut recommendations of the proposed new Committee of Twelve (six Democrats and six Republicans from both Houses of Congress) and across the board cuts are triggered under the agreement, Medicare could face substantial pairing down, while Medicaid-which is far more costly to the States-will face few spending cuts at all.