Every conservative I've talked to about this union busting continues to fixate on the money. "How selfish of the public employees to be unwilling to take a cut in their benefits for the good of the state!" They just keep repeating this, come hell or high water.
Please, people, LISTEN to what is being said. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. The hit to their benefits and paychecks is NOT what has those thousands of people protesting. It's the removal of collective bargaining rights - an extreme and unprecedented step that has far less to do with fixing the budget than with attacking political opponents and pushing a right-wing agenda. Collective bargaining is there to make sure that we don't have situations like this, where the only way the employees can make their voices heard is a disruptive and divisive strike. If the rights are stripped, then this kind of thing is going to happen a LOT more, because there will be absolutely nothing else that public employees can do when the political winds shift and Republicans decide to strip their pay and benefits to the bone.
And if you really think that stripping to the bone ISN'T what happens next, after the public employees have lost the ability to negotiate over it... you have a very special relationship with reality.
After watching his press conference, I thought, "What a piece of crap this guy is."
So I turned this out. I am reeeealy not happy!