Now, if the states want to spend a dollar on poor people, it's going to cost them a dollar. The effect of that over time will diminish the amount that states are willing to spend. Any economist worth his or her salt will tell you that. If we have a big recession, the states are not going to be capable of handling it. That's why we federalized aid to the poor in the first place.
Every state constitution requires a balanced budget.
So when you go into a recession you have less money available at the state level, and one of the things you cut back on is welfare. The federal government does not have a required balanced budget, and, in fact, it makes sense from a macro-economic point of view, when you go into a recession, to run a deficit. That's what brings you out of the recession. We've just wiped that out with respect to welfare. In the long run, if that stands, it's a terrible step backwards.