Progressives used to pride themselves on their desire to help the poor, but in Wisconsin these days they’d rather throw the poor under the bus—a public bus, of course, with a union driver—to protect the relatively wealthy class of workers who administer government programs. So we’ve watched the antics—legislative Democrats heading to Illinois to deny the governor a quorum for his budget vote; truckloads of union activists and boatloads of union money pouring into the state capital; attempts to portray Walker as someone who is destroying the state…

One of the nation’s biggest problems surrounds public employees, their compensation levels, and the degree to which their special privileges and demands are destroying public services and bankrupting cities, especially in my home state of California. Wisconsin is arguably an even more progressive state than California. It was the first state to allow public-sector workers to turn into the equivalent of Teamsters. But California has taken the matter much further than anywhere else in the nation.

California used to be the model for the nation in terms of its provision of public services. But without political competition there has been no push back as the unions grab more and more. No wonder the Golden State’s roads are crumbling and our services are tarnished. The only answer from the union movement and their Democratic patrons, including the current governor: higher taxes. The real question is whether Wisconsin voters want their state to turn into California but without the warm winters.