Leave aside for a moment the question of whether Porkulus is actually going to help or hurt the economy; for purposes of discussion, let’s say it’ll “help”, in the long term (and, equally plausible, let’s presume I’m going to be squiring Scarlett Johannsen around down this weekend).

Let’s also presume, for a moment, that the individual states have both the responsibility and the right (according to the Tenth Amendment) to set their own budgets and run their own business.

So should the government be holding up the “good” of the stimulus because  a state is balancing its budget by cutting pay for union workers?  As opposed to, say, firing them all?:

The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.

Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.

The World Health Organization is half right.  We have an pandemic of Pork Flu in this country.