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>> senator, what's your response? the governor says he's going to have to now lay off workers because he can't get a deal with the democrats. what's your response to that? >> right. what's really unfortunate about this is this is a tactic that he's used before, and unfortunately, it's nothing more than a tactic that really frightens workers throughout wisconsin. i've had a few friends who have called me with tears in their eyes talking about the layoff notice they've gotten in the mail saying, is this for real? and i had to think for a minute and think, okay, maybe this is actually happening. ...

On this situation, we're in an ultimate stand-off. put yourself in governor walker's shoes. >> he's having to balance the budget. you can't do that if you're spending more money than you take in. it's about the budget issue. i know there are sort of subplots, the unions and the public employees. interestingly enough, on page 35 of the book, i exactly talk about the fact that we have a train wreck coming. i wrote this almost a year ago. and it now proves to be somewhat prophetic because you can see the meltdown coming. public union workers, 30% better wages. 70% better benefits than their priva...

>> i'm actually not surprised, joe, because when you've been involved and listen to the scapegoating and demonization that we saw about teachers in the fall, that, you know, some people would pick this ideological fight. i mean, i think and i was watching your last segment, i think that, you know, in some ways the prank call did a real public service because what it did, it made it clear, this is not about the budget. this is about ideology, about are we going to -- or is somebody going to try and crush workers' voice? that's what unions do. they give workers a voice. the workers in wisconsin ...

$44,000 in benefits. you have job security and then you've got teachers walking off on the kids, heading into the capitol and bringing kids with them. you have to understand why people are upset by that. >> you'll find an outliar in every single situation. the average teacher salary across this country is not that. you know that and i know that. people don't go into teaching to become rich. at the end of the day you and i both know that my union and others have looked at how do we reform due process? how do we make sure that we're focused on performance? that's not the issue here. the issue he...

>> don't have to call them names. >> they took a powder to illinois rather than vote and do their job. >> i don't know you spoke giddish. union busting. just to reiterate that. i think thed media is reportingt as a budget issue. it's a union busting issue. >> it's not. >> the states are broke republicans when they were elected to office, taking away their collective far banning rights. ant eventually. i didn't interrupt you. >> bill: it is party politics. if you go back and look at the tape of the broadcast last night. we clearly laid out that the give backs were agreed upon by the union and n...