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Ban government employee unions
...The breakdown of union membership make this change clear: Only 7.3 percent of all private sector employees are union members, while 37.6 percent of all government workers are unionized. Fifty-one percent of all union members are government workers.

As the Heritage Foundation's James Sherk points out, these numbers ought to be red flags for taxpayers because "government employees don't strike to get higher wages from a private business -- they strike to get higher wages from you."

"Their pay is funded through your tax dollars," he adds. "For government employee union members to get more, your taxes need to go up. So that is what unions now lobby for." And as with so much else in this country, Sherk cautions that what is happening on the West Coast is likely a portent of disturbing things to come for the rest of us:

* In Oregon, public employee unions are funding ballot initiatives to raise personal income and business taxes in order to protect gold-plated medical benefits from state spending reductions.

* In California, the Service Employees International Union spent at least $1 million on a massive television ad campaign demanding that desperate state government officials raise oil, gas and liquor taxes instead of cutting spending....