About those cust to state aid in the stimulus package

Ed Kilgore details the $40 billion in cuts to state aid that are part of the Senate stimulus package,

The original House-Senate "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund" was set at $79 billion over two years. After a small rakeoff for territories and administration, it was divided roughly into $39 billion to the states (with a pass-through to school districts for unused funds) to restore prior state education cuts; a $15 billion "state incentives grant" program keyed to progress towards state education goals (presumably those set by No Child Left Behind); and then a $25 billion fund that could literally go to any state function, including education. This last flexible fund is basically general revenue sharing, though unlike the old Nixon-era program, it all goes to the states.

The amendment killed the flexible fund entirely; cut the "state incentive grant" fund in half (to $7.5 billion); and then left the remaining $31 billion in the fund distributed to offset state education cuts. So in the state fiscal stabilization section alone, the $40 billion cut everybody's talking about involves $25 billion in flexible money and $15 billion in education funding.