Take a good listen to the start of the segment bringing in Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, @ 8:50:
Unionization does not drive fiscal crises. Definitely not right now. Now, we don’t want to go too far with that. Pension funds, health care benefits, these things do matter for state budgets. They are a drag, just as, and we should be very clear about this, giant corporate income tax cuts are a big drag on state budgets, loss of revenues are a big drag, overspending is a big drag. But budgets are complicated. But I want to go a step further with what you’re saying here. Excuse me there. I want to go up a step further with what you’re saying, because it is important to realize that when the states made these promises to their workers they made a deal. They said, we’ll get your work now if you let us defer payment for it until later. That wasn’t a bad deal for the state. There’s a sort of narrative out there that these greedy workers got too much money. They got too much benefits from the state. Right now, they actually got less than what they figured they were totally promised. And, in the end the people who are going to pay here are these workers, not the states. The idea that the people who are coming out on the top of this are these overcompensated unions is really, frankly, a little bit atrocious. They basically got the short end of the stick here.And thanks, Gov. Christie, for telling me that union members constitute their own class, receiving “rich health and pension benefits." Giving the term “class warfare” a whole new definition. And in New Jersey, of all places.
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