According to this report from Newsday, a state oversight board is seizing control of Nassau County's finances "in large part because County Executive Edward Mangano was unable to get millions of dollars in labor givebacks to balance his $2.6-billion budget."

Of the county's 2,400 police officers, 1,103 were paid in excess of $150,000 a year. Clearly, that's not sustainable. And just last week Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., highlighted the case of Parsippany, N.J. where the town had to take out a bond to pay for the retirements of four police officers. Union rules allow police to be paid for any unused sick leave on retirement, and the four cops had accumulated $900,000 worth.

For years, public safety employee unions have extracted major salary and benefit concessions through implicit threat -- striking police leave communities vulnerable. But now we've reached a point where communities around the country are quite literally out of money. Either the unions start making concessions, or start losing jobs.