The recent protests in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are indicative of the power struggle between common sense and status quo. Many Wisconsin citizens feel that their state created the Collective Bargaining Agreement and are not willing to give up on 50 years of tradition.
I emphatically disagree with their reasoning. Traditions come and go, but those that are proven detrimental to the populace and beneficial of the few who, will profit by them, need to be abandoned for the common good. States and local governments can no longer afford to pay the ever-increasing wages and benefits demand and contractually bound to, by union representation of the workers. Without the creation of private sector jobs, the tax base shrinks, and the unions lean on civil service workers to replace their lost revenue. It cannot go on.
Bankrupt state and local governments that can no longer provide the services to the tax payers will have to get help from another source as tax dollars will not be sent in as those citizens will have to pay for services through the private sector or the federal government.
And that is how we get to the point we find ourselves now.
Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, and quoted by Ronald Reagan:
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have!