Here we go again. Whether it's bashing the long term unemployed as lazy, wanting to replace government workers with welfare recipients, calling for getting rid of Social Security, or comparing those who receive food stamps to crack cocaine addicts, you can always count on the panel of Fox's Cashin' In to attack unions and the working class and to defend the rich and powerful against having their taxes raised.

And as always the one liberal allowed to come on the show was outnumbered five to one.

This week they were attacking government workers as being overpaid compared to their public sector counterparts; a talking point has already been thoroughly debunked by our own Jon Perr last December -- Republicans Launch Phony War on Public Employees. Go read his entire post for much, much more, but here's a snippet:

Pawlenty repeated his charge to Fox News on Monday:

"You have public employees making more than their private-sector counterparts. They used to be under-benefited and underpaid. Now they're both over-benefited and overpaid...it needs to stop."

Sadly for would-be President Pawlenty, the charge - whether at the federal, state or local level - is false.

That's the conclusion of a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. Just one of many recent analyses debunking Republican charges about government workers and their unions, EPI found that "on average, state and local government workers are compensated 3.75% less than workers in the private sector." (See the table above for details.) The report by Labor and Employment Relations Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are undercompensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts:

The study analyzes workers with similar human capital. It controls for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity and disability and finds that, compared to workers in the private sector, state government employees are undercompensated by 7.55% and local government employees are undercompensated by 1.84%. The study also finds that the benefits that state and local government workers receive do not offset the lower wages they are paid.

The public/private earnings differential is greatest for doctors, lawyers and professional employees, the study finds. High school-educated public workers, on the other hand, are more highly compensated than private sector employees, because the public sector sets a floor on compensation. The earnings floor has collapsed in the private sector.

I'd just like to know what Rupert Murdoch is paying these blowhards to come on the air week after week and attack unions, the employed and the poor.