A group of governors is complaining that the federal government is putting restrictions on how federal SCHIP money gets spent. I love this line in their letter: "the requirements amount to a unilateral restriction on state authority to provide health insurance coverage to children..."

How do these requirements restrict state authority? As far as I know, the federal government is fine if states want to use their state tax dollars to provide insurance coverage. Of course, the federal government gets a little more concerned when states want to use federal money to start expanding their children's health insurance programs to middle class or rich kids.

This whining reminds me of the type of complaints I'd hear all the time when I used to work for a U.S. Senator. We'd always have people whose programs relied on federal money coming in and complaining about federal "restrictions." But most of the complaints centered around federal rules that came along with accepting federal money. These people were free to do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't accept federal money. It's a sad state of affairs when so many elected officials and ordinary citizens view federal money as a right and decry any attempts to restrict their ability to use taxpayer dollars.