Phil Bredesen Blogging Governor, State of Tennessee

Phil Bredesen Governor, State of Tennessee, has started a blog.

This will be worth monitoring, for several reasons:

1) Gov. Bredesen will probably be a Democratic candidate for President in 2008. In my opinion a very good one. It should be interesting to watch what position he takes on issues during the next couple years.

2) Bredesen has had to take the lead in dealing with many fiscal issues facing other governors. He inherited a terrible mess with Tennessee's state Medicaid program, TennCare. On paper, TennCare's mission is admirable and urgent. And, Bredesen is able to make the tough decisions. He knows what he needs to do. But his hands have been tied, especially in dealing with pharmacy costs. TennCare is a noble experiment that ran into too many advocacy groups to succeed. The Medicaid issue has become urgent in many states. As structured today, it is a fiscal albatross.

The posturing of the New York Times, has been predictable. They've already run several stories about Bush's "$10 billion cut in Medicaid spending." This is irresponsible nonsense. Bush has proposed a $2.5 billion reduction in the automatic annual increase of $30 billion per year for four years. So, he's proposing a cut from an automatic 15% increase to a 13.75% increase. (Of course, Bush's proposal affects the federal side of the Medicaid program. The problems are more acute in the states.)

3) Bredesen is a moderate who appeals to red-state-types and blue-state-types, partially because he is a very effective communicator. He seems to be wildly popular in Tennessee. (I'm judging on the basis of a couple very brief visits.) I expect he'll bring that to his blog.