QOTD - Wisconsin Union debate

It's true that Walker's proposals would strike hard at the power of the public employee unions. They would no longer have the right to bargain for fringe benefits, which are threatening to bankrupt the state government, and they would no longer be able to count on government withholding dues money and passing it along to them.

But what are the contributions that public employee unions make to our states and our citizens? Their incentives are to increase the cost of government and reduce down toward zero the accountability of public employees -- both contrary to the interests of taxpaying citizens.

An argument can be made that higher pay, generous benefits and lavish pensions will attract better people to public employment. But where are the studies that show that citizens of states with strong public employee unions get better services than citizens in states without?
What citizens of states with strong public employee unions do get are higher taxes and enormous pension burdens that threaten to squeeze out funds for ongoing services, as even Democratic governors like Andrew Cuomo of New York and Jerry Brown of California have figured out.
That's why one of the great 20th century presidents was against unions for public employees who have civil service protections. No, not Ronald Reagan. It was Franklin Roosevelt who said, "Action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable."

Excerpted from 'Public unions force taxpayers to fund Democrats' by Michael Barone
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/02/public-unions-force-taxpayers-fund-democrats#ixzz1EqCKPTeH

We have a war here between the government bureaucrat and the rest of us, and that's what this is.  I don't care what the job is.  Teacher, whatever the union employee is, the bureaucrat, that's the new war. That's the new class struggle. That's the new class warfare, not rich versus poor.  It's the government bureaucrat versus the rest of us.  The government bureaucrat happens to be unionized, and that's where we are.  That's not gonna go away any time soon.  You have Democrats going around, "We need to make it bloody in the streets here," and I'm sure they full-well intend to. ~Rush Limbaugh