In late January, as politicians in Washington began work on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year, battle lines were being drawn in Wisconsin over a similar issue.
On one side were the small-government conservatives who recognized the state's growing fiscal trouble—one that would leave the state billions of dollars in debt and demanded a serious cutback on government spending. On the other side were union cronies, big-government leftists and permanent malcontents determined to engage in class warfare.
To these people, the budget crisis facing Wisconsin was not, they claim, their doing and so any infringement of "workers' rights" would not be easily accommodated. The situation would have likely gone unnoticed, as it often does in blue-state politics where unions get the last and, often times, only say on legislation.
Wisconsin is a microcosm of a national pattern, one where government leaders are being forced to come to terms with unacceptable entitlement programs and benefits packages that leave what New Jersey Governor Chris Christie calls two classes of people: people who work for the government and everyone else.
Indeed, on the national level, Congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor have been advocating aggressive but responsible cuts in spending designed to at least begin to lower the national deficit.
While Barack Obama pushes a multi-trillion dollar budget that refuses to take on any vital reforms to entitlement programs, Republicans in Congress are making the difficult and far from popular decision to bring about actual change to Washington culture.
Pork-barrel projects, government-subsidized sympathy to what Democrats generally call "the poor"—in the Obama economy, most everyone is poor—and other cuts in extraneous spending add up to a relatively modest cut of $60 billion.
Yet even these small sacrifices are being bitterly fought by Democrats in Congress, determined as ever to maintain bloated government spending so long as it pays for the continued support from labor, minority groups and the rest.
Making matters worse is that not only do Democrats refuse to take responsibility for government spending, but they routinely try to impede any measures designed to restore fiscal responsibility.
Such is the case in Wisconsin, where Obama recently criticized Governor Walker publicly for "an assault on unions." The reality, however, could not be further from the truth. Walker recognizes that state and municipal spending on, for example, teacher's contracts is thoroughly unsustainable and has to be reigned in for the state government to remain solvent and for the tax rate to stay below stratospheric levels.
To accomplish this, Walker has asked for public-sector unions to pay slightly more of their income toward their own pension and healthcare costs. Further, his budget bill limits collective bargaining to negotiations on wages rather than an assortment of issues that are unnecessary.
To hear Obama and other Democrats describe it, however, you would think Walker was calling for the imprisonment of all public sector union members.
Walker is "attacking the middle class," infringing on "workers rights" and is routinely compared to Hitler. Big labor also argues that it is already willing to sacrifice, and Walker is completely unwilling to negotiate because he hates unions.
What escapes mention, however, is that the unions were initially opposed to any kind of increased payment toward pension and healthcare plans, something that long ago became standard for private-sector employees.
It was only when Walker mentioned scaling back on collective bargaining that unions would even consider it, and finally, only when they saw Walker had the votes to scale back the largesse of collective bargaining did they become willing to make the modest sacrifices that everyone else already has made.
As for the collective bargaining measure itself, Walker is merely restricting its use to wages, which is what the public mistakenly believes is all it is used for.
In fact, unions have used their collective bargaining privileges to keep everything from bad teachers in the classrooms to dictating the wall color of break rooms.
The result has been a ballooning cost to municipalities who have little recourse other than to raise taxes. The Walker plan simply brings collective bargaining back to its original purview of wage negotiations and helps curb tax increases.
None of this is mentioned by Obama Democrats, however. All we hear, and all we ever hear, is how draconian Republican spending cuts are. The answer for them is always found in "revenue enhancements" and helping poor children receive access to healthcare.
The song and dance number has to come to an end sometime, however, with or without the help of Democrats. Their continued refusal to take on serious spending cuts and adhere to fiscal restraint damages our nation's fiscal security and future.
Rather than attack those who are picking up the slack for his ineptitude, Obama should be working with the Republican majority in the House to develop a common sense, fiscally responsible budget.
If Obama's previous actions are any indication, however, we should not hold our breath.