kate -v returns the following output:
Qt: 4.8.2
KDE Development Platform: 4.8.4 (4.8.4)
Kate: 3.8.4

kate has become unusable because the size of its window has grown larger than the screen. The problem started when the kate window was stuck to the bottom of the screen. Even clicking the icon in the top left corner and clicking on the resize command did not allow me to shrink the vertical size of the window. After many failed resize attempts, the window expanded horizontally beyond the edge of the screen. Splitting the screen to try to make a usable portion of the window with a scroll bar I could use just exacerbated the problem. the menu bar and the widget button are above the screen and beyond the reach of the mouse cursor. Uninstalling kate and reinstalling kate does not solve the problem. The window starts up the same size as it was before. I am having a difficult time finding out how to solve the problem. source kate returns the following output:
bash: source: /usr/bin/kate: cannot execute binary file

I suspect that this is because kate was installed with a .deb binary file. I can't even find a tar file with the source code for kate. Kate's website doesn't even seem to offer the source code. It just says to run apt-get or wget to obtain binary installs. Thankfully, kwrite is not plagued by the resizing problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Resize kate vertically in such a way that the bottom edge touches the bottom of the screen.
2.Try and fail to resize the window.
3.Yell, curse, and weep  in frustration.
Actual Results:  
the window gets larger instead of smaller and will not shrink.

Expected Results:  
allowed the window to resize to a smaller size.

Since kwrite does not have this problem, perhaps the split window option has something to do with this problem. apt-get purge kate followed by apt-get install kate did not correct the problem. So I think that there is some configuration file somewhere on the system that is not being deleted in the uninstall that kate uses to load the settings from the previous session.