It was a cold evening in Madison last February when I decided to take a walk around the Capitol Square. I was curious to see what was making megaphone-wielding protesters barge into classrooms. A friend had just forwarded me an email from his professor saying class was cancelled – citing Marx in his suggestion that students use the time off to go protest. While lingering around the periphery of the crowd, I heard Jesse Jackson’s voice come over the loudspeaker, “You are winning the Super Bowl of worker’s rights.”

But he was wrong.

The legions of unionists descending on Madison were losing. Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan would soon pass the state Senate – despite the fact that the so-called “Fab 14” were cavorting around in the Land of Lincoln. One judicial referendum election and several recall elections later, the curbs on union power Walker enacted remain intact.

Jackson’s words however raised a valid point – we are in fact at a Super Bowl of sorts. Though in this contest, we are playing for no less than the ensured prosperity of future generations. And Wisconsin is at the center of it all.

Unions are spending millions here to overthrow a governor who was democratically elected less than two years ago. Why? Because he challenged their authority. And now it’s payback time.
No, not for Wisconsin’s teachers and middle-class families.

Both those groups are better off thanks to Walker’s reforms. Walker’s site notes that the reasonable 5.8 percent of income public sector employees now contribute to their pensions and 12.6 percent they contribute to their health insurance made it so the state didn’t need to layoff teachers to balance the budget. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the middle class now benefits from the state’s lowest unemployment rate in four years.

What this recall election is really about is payback for unions. Those outrageous assaults on collective bargaining power – read: union power – must be answered for. It doesn’t matter that school boards have more freedom to make decisions that best suit their district. It doesn’t matter that – as the MacIver Institute points out -as of the start oft his school year, 69 percent of those school districts reported over $160 million in savings.The savings came at the expense of union power, you must understand. Scott Walker must be brought to justice.

But fiat justitia ruat caelum – let justice be done though the heavens fall.

Unions will spend millions of dollars and expend countless resources in the course of their recall efforts. By the time general election fundraising kicks into high gear, many state Democratic donors will be tapped out. Even if they succeed in overthrowing Walker, collective bargaining power will not be reinstated without control of the state Assembly.

Beyond union follies however, Wisconsin’s recall election is only the beginning of a battle our generation will fight the rest of our lives. The adults spent too much. And it’s our job to pay their debts. It will be our responsibility to continuously confront a public sector which seeks to expand, at the expense of a private sector that can’t afford it.

Now we can ignore our responsibility and continue to demand the government give us everything we want. Every time we do not get what we want, we can chalk it up to an unprecedented attack on our rights as the recall movement is doing. Or make a scapegoat out of the wealthy like our generation is now famous for doing thanks to Occupy Wall Street.

Or we can do the opposite. On June 5 we can choose individual responsibility over government entitlement. We can ensure future generations are not burdened by staggering debt and an expanding public sector. We can show that our generation is willing to ratify Walker’s limits on union power, if it means our schools can make choices that benefit students. The Super Bowl is on. Which team will you root for?

Matthew Payne ([email protected]) is a Robert Bartley fellow at the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and a senior majoring in Chinese and economics.