The illusion has been revealed: the strings are now visible.

When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said she would reject nearly half of the federal stimulus money, she was lauded by conservatives. But she was also brutally attacked by liberals who claimed she was putting her state’s well-being in jeopardy just to make a political statement.

In March of this year, she said that she would only accept 55% of the federal economic stimulus money, because “we are not requesting funds intended to just grow government.” Palin reiterated that, in her opinion, the Federal Government had “too many strings attached” and accepting the money “would create unsustainable burdens on the state government once the federal money ran out.”

The greedy guts pols in Alaska's Legislature, however, wanted the “free money”. They “conducted more than 20 public hearings on the federal stimulus package, and legislative leaders said they couldn't find any of the strings attached to the funds that Palin had warned about.”

So liberals laughed and clapped and nearly broke their arms slapping themselves on the back with self-congratulatory praise when Palin finally gave in and accepted almost all of the money.

But today we hear that the Obama administration is threatening the state of California with rescinding all of the federal bailout money if the Schwarzenegger administration does not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers.

Faced with a budget shortfall in the tens of billions of dollars, the California government must find cuts to reduce their deficit, or face collapse. The legislators there decided to cut the wages from $12.10 to $10.10 per hour, which would save California $74 million. But the Obama administration, being heavily indebted to Unions, is now violating California’s sovereignty and limiting the actions the state can take to restore its fiscal health.

Strings? What strings?

Perhaps California will be the next state, following Texas and Oklahoma, to reiterate its state sovereignty.