The Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reductions, aka the super committee, failed to meet its congressional obligation to vote on a plan for $1.2 trillion in budget cuts during the last weeks of November. As you may remember, the U.S. Congress signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 into law this past summer creating the bipartisan 12 member committee. The super committee had been charged with finding at least $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reductions by the end of the year. Their failure to achieve a consensus triggers a series of automatic budget cuts in the amount of 1.2 trillion dollars which will go into effect in 2013.

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After months of debate and intense negotiation between the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and White House, President Barack Obama signed The Budget Control Act of 2011 (S. 365) into law on August 2nd. This legislation will raise the debt ceiling through the end of 2012 and paves the way for trillions of dollars in government spending cuts. Although Medicare and Medicaid dodged a bullet in this first round, ANA remains concerned that safety net programs will be on the chopping block once the newly created Deficit Reduction Committee seeks to identify another $1.5 trillion in savings.

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