...There may have been a time when "we" could afford the extravagances that the unions demand, but no more....
I would argue that there never was a time when we could afford it, and my reasoning is the debt accumulation. I wouldn't suggest that plush entitlement packages for government workers are solely to blame for the debt, but since the debt exists, and government employees by the nature of their compensation are paid directly via taxpayer dollars, their salaries and benefits comes from the exact same pool of resources that every other government expenditure comes from, and if government is in debt, by definition it does not have enough money to cover its expenditures.
There was a time when we could
pretend that we could afford the extravagances the unions demanded. There was a time when politicians could get away with purchasing the votes of union members by keeping their coffers filled at taxpayer expense, all the while our national debt accumulating until it exploded.
But thanks to that explosion, and thanks to the revelation of the nature of the Leftists who are responsible for it, the jig is up. We never could afford it.
And really, the union people scrambling in Wisconsin now, trying to offer financial concessions while retaining their collective bargaining privileges, are trying to perpetuate the notion that we could afford it before, and we can afford it again. They want to give up short term cash in the face of a public relations tsunami against them, but retain their ability to reinstate the same entitlement regime and accumulation of debt at some point in the future when the heat is off.
The lynchpin of eliminating the incestuous relationship between the Democrats and the unions is eliminating collective bargaining privileges for public employee unions, period. We never could afford it, and we will never be able to afford it.