EDITOR,

In the early 1960s, private unions constituted a third of the labor force. Today, that percentage is below 9 and continues to fall.

Why? General Motors is an example. The United Auto Workers drove the cost of labor, which includes pensions and retiree medical benefits, above market level and made GM unable to compete, and now GM faces bankruptcy. Labor unions essentially destroy the companies they work for.

This is no less true in the state of California. The public service unions own the Democratic Party, which controls state politics and continued to expand government and tax and regulate the private sector for their benefit.

The public unions drove the cost of state government too high, driving people out of the state and creating enormous deficits. Unless the unions can get their ally, President Obama, to bail out the state, thousands of them will finally lose their jobs, having driven the cost of government so high that it is a burden on the rest of us.

This problem was decades in the making and will continue to hurt California for decades to come.

Right now, state employees are owed $120 billion in unfunded pensions and medical insurance. We will be compelled to pay state government retirees for 20 or 30 years to do nothing. Right now, a state employee can get lifetime benefits after 20 years of service.