Illinois' path offers lesson

[Ban my account ffs!]

Reform of medical spending and pensions are key to keeping states solvent.  You can do so by busting unions and alienating a lot of the public... Or you can sit down, lock the doors, and mete something out.

If Walker were smart, he would've gone to the Democrats before anybody else and asked them to back him on serious reform with everybody at the table.  The carrot would be that Democrats and unions would be able to participate in the details of a plan generally guided by the majority Republicans... The stick being that the Republicans could do what they actually did do...and let the voters decide their fate.

If the Democrats were smart, they'd have taken Walker up on the offer.

But Walker isn't smart, so it was never going to happen that way.