The key to the 1996 reforms was that the block grants to each state were finite, not matching, so the federal funding did not vary with the amount the state spent.

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Arguably, no state has such finite resources as does Hawaii.

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But those were all finite activities and not the idea of a state where you could never have any conclusive victory.

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The reforms provided instead for fixed, finite, block grants to the states, with broad state flexibility to adopt changes to get dependents out to work.

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Ideally this would be done by reforming Medicaid financing to provide the federal assistance to the states for the program through fixed, finite block grants, which do not vary by matching increased state Medicaid spending as under the current system.

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"Let's face it, the bank was in a state of catharsis, and I wanted to be chief executive within a finite period of time", he says frankly.

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This all seemed fine for a while, but now many Texans, and even the editors of the New York Times-who put the news on page one on June 13-are astonishedly discovering that educational resources are finite, and the boost for weak students is sending numerous first-rate students to colleges out of the state.

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