This point has been made several times this weekend, and it's true:
Before the emergence of public unions, public employees were compensated significantly less than people in the private sector. The reason? Much of the private sector work force was unionized. What changed is not the public employees got a better deal, but that the private sector became deunionized, lost the right to bargain collectively, and saw their compensation and benefits stagnate or fall. But I have another question. Do taxpayers want public workers to get the smallest possible salaries? Do they want a government administered by paupers?
Crabs in a bucket. If we're slicing at one another, we're not paying attention to the folks with the pot of boiling water.
Wrong target.