Sounds like a cut to me. Did medical costs suddenly reverse direction and plummet while I wasn't looking? Do you not understand what loss of jobs (where I live, the textile industries and large segments of tech. related jobs) has done to the economy in many parts of the country? States have absorbed all of the cost shifting that they can. You also seem not to be aware that social safety net programs like Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent children, the Food Stamps program, have had their funding and their policies become steadily more restrictive since the block grant programs began in 1981. After 15 years of erosion, there ain't no beach left.

Janie