"Government's being used here..."

Aside from the question of who "Arhuld" is, I thought this was a very insightful observation by Kathryn Jean Lopez on the Corner yesterday:

In all this controversial stem-cell and cloning research (even though we so rarely use the c word, even when it is appropriate because it is exactly the issue on the table), biotech companies want the government to give them a safety net -- because this early-stage research may not pan out. That's why they've been loving the state rivalries that had popped up. What if Massachusetts beats California in the race for the cure to all disease!?! Government's being used here -- and not in the best interest of taxpayers. What business did California have funding a huge stem-cell initiative when Arhuld got elected in large part because the state treasury was a disaster? I thought that was such an obvious argument against the initiative at the time, but common sense was drowned out by emotional panacea promises -- ones that people are totally understandably receptive too. (And don't think even the most ardent opponents of embryonic-stem-cell research and cloning don't think hard about these things--and don't have personal experience with some of the kinds of illnesses that are so often mentioned. That would be an incorrect assumption.)

If I remember correctly, the California budget was $80 billion in the red when Gov. Gray Davis was ousted and Arnold took over in Sacramento. I think the current budget deficit is only $30 billion, but nonetheless, Lopez is right — the voters of California had no business voting for a $6 billion stem-cell research package. And she's right that the federal government is being held hostage by stem-cell proponents at the state level — they're essentially saying, "The evil Bush Administration won't fund this, so we'll tell all sorts of lies to get the states involved and shame the feds into action."