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Every time I explain federal child welfare financing to someone for the first time – whether it be a student or a Congressional staffer – I have the same experience. I start by saying that the federal government doesn’t actually run a child welfare system, but instead establishes requirements and standards for state and county-based systems and then provides funding to put those standards into practice.

Rewriting the rules on the lion’s share of federal foster care money – the Title IV-E entitlement – is hardly a fresh notion. Legislators have undertaken more than a dozen attempts to re-formulate IV-E, which includes 90 percent of the federal spending on child welfare, but precludes states from using that money for anything but foster care.