Of acrobats and safety nets

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to analogize his proposal to eliminate California's welfare-to-work program to acrobatics this morning. Here's the governor's take, in his own words:

I think that I've tried for the last six years that we change the budget system in such a way that we can have a rainy-day fund set aside. I think it is very important. And I think that Sen. [Darrell] Steinberg just recently said that with those cuts that we have in place right now, we will be the only state, or one of the only states, that will have no safety net. And coincidentally, it's also one of the only states that does not have a rainy-day fund.

So there's a direct correlation. You cannot have a safety net if you don't have the money for that safety net. I mean, it's like being in the circus and saying to someone, "You've got to put a safety net underneath when those acrobats tumble around." And then you go and say, "But I'm not going to give you any money." So that doesn't work.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento