Why the Public Employee Union Gravy Train is Doomed

Here is a map of party control state by state:

Wisconsin barely flipped it's senate last night, but that won't hold per November elections thanks to redistricting, and Walker got his reforms anyway.

This map gets uglier for the Democrat-PEU complex when you consider:
Minnesota is more controlled by its overwhelmingly Republican statehouse than it's ineffective man-child Governor.

New York's Governor Cuomo has no qualms about curbing pensions and even some public employee "rights", and has a Republican-controlled Senate to help.

New Jersey is the effectively the kingdom of Sir Fat Man of Rinodom, whose reforms have worked well enough and convinced enough folks normally apprehensive to such changes that he is likely to coast to re-election, a feat unheard of for a Republican in the Garden State in decades.

Several states are expected to shift even more Republican in the fall, including Montana, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.

Three of the largest cities in the country: San Jose, San Diego, and Chicago(!), are currently or will shortly be mayored by men ready and willing to put a boot on the neck of unions to stop the pension bombs (Rahm's fight will be the most interesting).

Listening to the usually contradictory Bill Handel yesterday morning on KFI, he called Tuesday's results a "sea change", and stated bluntly that the era of public union power is effectively over. I have heard and read this assessment numerous times since the recall (and in the days leading up to it), and think it's fairly accurate when you look at the numbers now against them. They still own and control enough state legislatures to stagger about, but the survival of Walker has yanked their teeth out, neutered them, took an arm, a foot, and half a face along with it.

The progressive mayor of San Jose described the pension bomb as a cancer. Walker's reforms are chemo. They will cause lots of nasty reactions, but they are necessary, they work, and they are popular. While there was pushback last year in Ohio and a bit in Michigan, recent developments show the trend is back in favor of the taxpayer, for the first time in years (and in some states, decades).

I've never felt better about the fiscal health on a state-by-state level of this country in years. It's almost anti-doomy, and for a few fleeting moments I forget how screwed we are on the federal level.

posted by CAC at 11:30 AM

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