"But now the right is going after public employees.
Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don't want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they'd like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.
It's far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public's work -- sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees -- to call them "faceless bureaucrats" and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets. The story fits better with the Republican's Big Lie that our problems are due to a government that's too big."
To be fair its an easy lie to keep up. In California you can look at say LA's drop out rate and say if teachers want more money they should produce. (it's impossible by the way that you aren't paying them enough to perform.) And hey the rest of us are making less why aren't government workers getting laid off too! Nevermind that less people with less money would most likely add to the lack of spending cus that's not important in the least. What's important is spreading the pain as far as possible.