Californians were alarmed when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed that some of the state's welfare programs be eliminated altogether after federal courts had prevented him from making reasonable cutbacks that would have left the programs intact.
It's easy to see why residents of the state who would be hit by the elimination of the programs were upset: If cutting back the programs would be painful, think how tough it would be on them if the programs were halted completely! Many, after all, are elderly, sick or disabled.
But now, New York, another state deep in debt because of reckless spending, is facing the same dilemma.
Gov. David Paterson tried to place state workers on occasional unpaid furloughs to close New York's budget gap. But once again, a federal judge said no -- at the bidding of state government workers' unions.
Now, Gov. Paterson, too, has been forced to make a proposal that is even worse than what the federal judge rejected: He has mapped out a plan not to furlough state government workers for a day here and there but to lay off thousands of them altogether.
Think about that: Many workers in New York will now be worse off because of the meddling of an activist federal court that supposedly was "doing them a favor" by refusing to let them be furloughed. They'll have no job at all!
It's awfully easy for a judge to hand down an order when he doesn't have to come up with the money to pay for implementing that order. But it's not so easy when you're on the receiving end of the judge's costly ruling.