CALIFORNIA / Bush gets bill slashing foster care aid / State, 8 others in West affected by federal cutback

Republicans screw abused children to pay for tax cuts on the wealthy.

CALIFORNIA / Bush gets bill slashing foster care aid / State, 8 others in West affected by federal cutback: "A bill awaiting President Bush's signature includes provisions to cut off federal foster care benefits for hundreds of California children living with low-income relatives after being removed from the homes of abusive or neglectful parents.

If the cutback survives an expected court challenge, the reduction in aid will be substantial. In the Bay Area and other high-cost regions, for example, a woman providing foster care for grandchildren ages 7 and 10, who now gets $1,315 a month, would receive $723, the amount of a conventional welfare grant.

The higher aid total was ordered by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in a March 2003 ruling that was binding in California and eight other Western states. The ruling said children who are placed with grandparents or other family members can receive federal aid based on their new foster parents' low incomes.

The government had argued that the aid should be based on the incomes of the parents from whose homes the children were removed.

Tucked into the federal Deficit Reduction Act, which won final passage Wednesday on a largely party-line vote of 216-214 in the House, is language declaring that the appeals court ruling was wrong and that long-standing federal law bases eligibility solely on the parents' incomes."