Public unions in Wisconsin are protesting having to pay some of their insurance and pension costs out of their own pockets, like the rest of America does.

That's fine.  They're entitled to protest.

The Governor is entitled to fire them all.  And he should do so.

Right now.

There are millions of unemployed Americans.  There is no shortage of people looking for work.  Many of them are qualified to teach.

Teachers protesting at Wisconsin's Capitol Building in Madison shut down schools for a second day Thursday so they could demand collective bargaining rights that they say are essential to keeping kids in school.

Teachers have a fundamental right to free speech.

They do not have a right to a free day off at the taxpayer's expense in order to exercise that right to free speech.

Calling in sick when you're not really sick is a lie.  It is a violation of trust.  It is properly responded to with being dismissed from your position, since you're expected to act honorably in dealing with the students.  Any teacher or administrator who is incapable of acting honorably must be ejected from his or her position and replaced.

The correct solution to this problem is to fire all of the teachers who have called in sick but in fact are not sick.

"Our goal  is not to close schools, but to instead to remain vigilant in our efforts to be heard," said Mary Bell, president of the 98,000-strong Wisconsin Education Association Council.

We can put 98,000 people who wish to work instead of protest to work right now, today.

That's a great deal.  Let those who wish to protest do so.  But let those who wish to work and get paid for a day's work do so.

The State is close to $4 billion in the hole.  Pension funds are bankrupt and have been playing Ponzi for years.  The game's up.  Same with health insurance.  The costs cannot be covered any more at the escalation rate that is taking place.

It has to stop, here and now.

The unions want everyone to pay more taxes.  But we have paid more taxes.  What we haven't gotten for our taxes is better results.  So we're paying for nothing - a pig in a poke.

The money doesn't exist.  Private sector employees have had to suck it up, work harder and get paid less.  There's no way around this - you can't spend what you don't have forever.

The public unions think they're exempt from the laws of mathematics.  They're not.  All they can do is what they're doing - try to hold people up.

It's time to say no and shut them down.

You're free to speak all you want.  You're free to protest.  You're not free to spend the taxpayers money to pay you to protest, and you're not free to lie about the reason you're not showing up for work. 

When I ran my company if you lied to me about why you were not coming to work your job was toast.  No ifs, ands, buts or maybes, and no second chances. 

Ever.

Either go back to work or get fired and replaced.

End of discussion.