Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Wisconsin's Real Lesson

In her latest Daily column, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes that the biggest mistake that Wisconsin's public unions made was to believe that government jobs equalled economic security. But what they are finding out now is that the government can offer no more security than the tooth fairy. Public sector unions simply traded the cruel vagaries of the market for the cruel vagaries of politics. The same awesome powers that they were counting on the government to use to protect them are now being redirected against them. As Dalmia explains, that's because a government that is powerful enough to give them everything they want is powerful enough to take away everything they've got.

If the government has changed the rules of the game mid-way, the unions have no one to blame but themselves. "After all," Dalmia writes, "they are the ones who decided to play with it in the first place."

Read all about it here, or for the full multi-media experience, read the column on your iPad.