[JMLot]

We are in a very slow recovery, jobs may never be the same. There is no arguement that the Banks and Financial institutions caused this debacle and cost this nation (and the world) trillions of dollars, nothing really was done to bring them to justice.

Actually, there is plenty of debate to have and lessons to learn about the economic crisis and its causes. There were many parties over a long period of time contributing to what ultimately failed our economy. Saying it is exclusive to Banks and Financial Institutions is both without fact and rather ignorant I might add. I am not suggesting at all that they have no blame, quite the opposite in that risk and investment return based on complicated debt investment vehicles was a huge problem. But it was clearly not the only problem. It is just void of all facts, and some obvious political decisions in recent history, to pin the entire thing on one group. Politics, of the left and the right, played a huge role in this. In a way it shows a typical partisan lean others here have as well on blaming it all on the rich guys when it clearly is not the case.

How did the Teachers and public employees, who represent only a fraction of the lost riches, get the blame and punition way out of proportion to their situation? To be sure, some contracts are excessive, and a third party should negociate them instead of politicians, but the actual employees are taxpayers just like us, and most work just as hard despite the disparaging diatribe of some malcontents.

These are two separate subjects really, no misdirection but more just political obviousness. We have several threads going already in debate over public union collective bargaining and the implications of cost. It comes down to typical partisan politics of being pro-union or not and we have plenty here on both sides of the debate. In that, one could make a strong argument that Unions will always be a target of the right when it comes to budgetary concerns state to state. It is the inverse of the equally strong argument that the left typically supports union activity up to and including special benefit to unions not afforded to everyone else. This includes having tax payers on the hook for mismanagement of politicians, regardless of side of the isle in cause. And you are right, some of these contracts are out of balance when compared to the private sector.

Politics aside for a moment, the issue of state budgets are far worse now then before the economic crisis as the majority of states face a shortfall of some level. Just about every state has a financial issue to contend with regardless of the history of how they got into that position. Enter politics back into the discussion and you get the typical partisan points of view on how to remedy the issues. So, what is your solution to state budget concerns? Some will say cuts, some will say tax increase, some may say both, others may say massive wealth tax, but I am curious what your take is on this based on your OP here.

I'll go first, I am more interested in cost cutting, government size controlling, and limiting public union collective bargaining rights. I am on the fence on that last part but the more I look at the issues we face in government cost the more I lean to limitations on collective bargaining... for now. I view unions in general these days as a real departure from the original intentions of unions in our nations history and now are more political pawns in the long standing game of class warfare over any real interest in employee protections in safety and rights.