The back of the public service unions has been broken.  New York just made it official.

While most of the country watched the goings on in Wisconsin and Ohio, the public service unions were throwing everything they had at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and the New York State Legislature, which, historically, buckles under union pressure.

Not this time.  This time the governor and the State Senate held firm.  They did not budge on taxes and they did not budge on spending cuts.

No one is buying the union scare tactics anymore.  Neither are they buying the intimidation methods.  The reason is that the public stands squarely behind those working to save our states from insolvency.  Even when that means making the tough calls. Joe Citizen gets it.

States do not have a revenue problem.  They have a spending problem – and pension solvency problems.  All the placards, chants, slogans, telephone calls, television ads, radio spots, billboards, emails, and pizzas delivered to protesters at state capitols in the night mean nothing in the face of that new reality.

It may take time to roll back the unsustainable benefits handed public service unions employees over the years.  But 2011 is the year the when public unions lost their forward  momentum. The rebuke of public service union pressure in Wisconsin was crippling.  Losing in New York may be the coup de grâce.