Rick Santelli: Budget Crises Are the Next 9/11

from Politico.com:

CNBC's Rick Santelli on Sunday compared the budget crises affecting state and federal balance sheets to a Sept. 11-type attack on the nation.

"If the country is ever attacked as it was on 9/11, we all respond with a sense of urgency," Santelli said in a roundtable discussion on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the Wisconsin labor protests. "What’s going on on balance sheets throughout the country is the same type of attack.”

There have been questions about the appropriateness of collective-bargaining agreements for public employees since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Santelli added, and states are realizing that pension and benefit costs need to be controlled.

"This is an issue that needs to be put out into the air," Santelli said. "Many other states ultimately — they might not have the same balance sheet as Wisconsin — but collective bargaining from the federal level ... these are big issues, and these costs need to be put under control."