The new issue (March/April 2011) isn’t due to be posted online until next week, but I asked Oliver to post my editorial in the issue on the Home Page today because it speaks directly to the current debate going on in Wisconsin and other states over unsustainable public employee pay and benefits. Unions in all 50 states are planning protests in the next several days against state government attempts to roll back public employee union pay and power. They view it as a union rights issue, but I strongly disagree. I favor any politician like Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker who has the guts to stand up to public employee unions whose bloated pay and perks are about to bankrupt many states. I wish our federal government had the guts to act as boldly as the governor when it comes to their unsustainable spending. Instead President Obama is openly siding with the unions.

My editorial speaks mainly about my own small community of Curry County in southwestern Oregon, but my community’s problems are a reflection of what is happening today nearly everywhere in America. The editorial has already raised eyebrows locally, and I am more than a little concerned that local government or its police who I have criticized will target the magazine or its employees. Imagine! Being concerned that government will target me for speaking out about a problem everyone knows exists! What has happened to the land of the free?

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