President Obama is asking for $50 billion dollars worth of emergency aid for the State and local governments. For more info on this act of desperation, click the link Obama Pleads for $50 billion. According to President Obama, "the money would avoid massive layoffs of teachers, police, and firefighters". It does NOT fix anything, but rather kicks the can down the road for the next politician to deal with.
This bailout is clearly for unions, as they are not willing to accept concessions. There was a rally of Union employees recently where their chant was "raise our taxes". Here is a link to the video: Union Employees' Want Higher Taxes. You have to read the top comments associated with the video...
We cannot bailout the unions because that will NOT solve the underlying issues. The issues are as follows: union pay (far above private companies), union benefits, and of course pensions. The process will be difficult, but the sooner we fix the underlying issues the sooner we can be on the road to recovery. Regardless what the mainstream media tells you, we are clearly not in "recovery" just take a look at the foreclosure numbers (among many other economic metrics).
