You’re talking about Republicans but then saying “state” is a generic word.

I’m saying when I personally used the word “state” in the bit that you quoted, I was using the generic meaning of state. It’s an overloaded word (multiple meanings). What I mean by the “generic meaning” is that I was not referring to the state level jurisdiction. E.g. if the context were Texas, my use of the word “state” was not the state of Texas in that quote. The word state can simply mean government at any level. A federal government (aka nation state) can also generically be referred to as the “state”, even though it’s not state as the jurisdictional construct that composes the United States.

Likewise, even a local government like a city or county can be generically called the “state”. So to answer your question, the state of Texas can ban welfare checks from the state level in the whole state of Texas, but a lower (non-republican controlled) government can circumvent that by offering food and shelter instead of checks.

Welfare can happen at any level. I went to the emergency room and racked up a 4-figure hospital bill, and said “I have no insurance or income”. It was no problem.. the county had financial aid that I qualified for. The county paid the bill for me, not the state¹ or fed.

1. in that case, I mean state in the sense of a jurisdictional construct.