There are more than 20 million people out of work in America today, and against this backdrop, the local SEIU organizes a strike in Fresno County. This is an outrage, and we should not put up with it.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors should immediately give striking SEIU workers a deadline to return to work, or commence the process of obtaining permanent replacement workers for the positions being abdicated. The county would have no problem filling them, at a lower wage, virtually overnight.

Just once I would like a government worker, at any level, to say thank you. Thank you that millions of hard-working taxpayers and business owners work every day to give them a job. That's right, a job.

Government employees could not exist without the private sector. We produce the profits, which are then taxed, to employ them. We produce the paychecks, which are then taxed and sent to Washington, Sacramento and Fresno, to employ them.

If it weren't for other people's success, they wouldn't have a job. Period. Instead, we face a litany of grievances and complaints, and frankly, I and many others. are sick of their attitude toward us.

Amid a spectacular worldwide economic meltdown, declining government revenues, incompetent political leadership and legacy costs from excessive labor deals made by our elected officials, government has had to downsize.

Here in Fresno County, where it is against the law to run deficits and where budgets must be balanced, there is no China waiting to fund our excesses, so we have to make sure that we don't spend more than we have coming in.

Since personnel costs, including wages, benefits and retirement are so significant, this is the first area that must be right-sized for budgets to pencil out. Thank goodness that three county supervisors, Judy Case, Debbie Poochigian, and Phil Larson, have some level of understanding of the crisis. If left to their colleagues, Henry Perea and Susan Anderson, we'd be in an even worse mess.

The primary concern of striking SEIU members is a 9% wage cut enacted by Fresno County supervisors. What SEIU and government labor unions across the country seem to not understand, or choose to ignore, is that there is no money. Government is out of money. This is a simple fact. Taxpayers understand it, business leaders understand it. Union leaders do not.

In the private sector, we deal with these economic realities every day. The contraction of employment, the federally caused housing crisis and tentative employers terrified at the uncertain political climate in Washington and Sacramento have had a devastating effect on wages and benefits.

This downturn in the business cycle has had a dramatic impact on everyone. Why should the SEIU be exempted from the conditions facing the rest of us? What they should be doing, rather than striking, is expressing gratitude that they still have jobs, even at a lower wage. A 9% pay cut is preferable to a 100% pay cut, is it not?

Even FDR said that striking government employees were "unthinkable and intolerable." All over the country, in places where governors have had the courage to confront the growing issues of the excessive cost structure of government, public employee unions are girding for battle.

For the "sin" of balancing the state budget and getting personnel cost under some control in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker faces a recall election. I suppose Wisconsin state unions would rather run multibillion dollar budget deficits than have a state with some sense of fiscal management.

Closer to home, SEIU has spent millions trying unsuccessfully to unseat Supervisors Poochigian and Larson. Thank goodness they failed, or the county of Fresno would be going the way of California and Washington, D.C. -- bankrupt.

These battles are going to continue until SEIU hears from us, the people that pay the bills, that their actions locally are not only unacceptable, but an affront to all who make their jobs possible in the first place.

Take your 9% pay cut and go home, people. You are damn lucky to have that job in the first place.