Missouri Adoption Subsidy Cuts Overturned by Court

When Matt Blunt took office in January 2005, along with Republicans controlling but houses of the state legislature, they came out with barrels blazing. Their targets? The poor, the elderly, children, foster kids, grandparents who are raising their children...Anyone who didn't fit the new Republican model of self-sufficiency and individual success. Any department that was not a "winner" with his corporate masters - er - donors - got slashed. Swidden politics at its worst. The era of compassionate conservatism died in this state when Matt "the Boy Blunder" Blunt took office in 2001.

The GOP, finding themselves in control of both houses and the mansion, went so far as to invite the scrutiny of the feds. Specifically, the R's passed a law in 2005 that limited the subsidy payments to families that adopt children through the state's foster care program.

Earlier this year, Federal judge Scott O. Wright issued a permanent injunction against the law, siding with the child advocates and foster children who sued to block the law taking effect. The opponents of the law claimed it violated the equal protection clause and was therefore unconstitutional. Wright agreed, and this week, State Attorney General Jay Nixon returned an amended injunction to Wright, who signed off on it.

Let me put the cuts Blunt pushed through in perspective. My husband is a retired military officer, he retired with the rank of Major from the USAF in January 2001. We can live okay on his monthly income alone, and I work part time as a medical professional. I have not worked full time in ages, opting instead to spend more time in the lab at school than a medical lab. Part time, I make the average household income per year. But this state sends me a tax refund every flippin' year - even though I don't need it, and would much rather the state levied some taxes and we had decent roads and streets, we cared for the young and the elderly and the infirm, and the mentally ill. A society is, after all, judged by the way it treats the weakest in their numbers. Matt Blunt has decided they need no treatment at all.