All over the country, conservatives are complaining about the need to “cut government spending” at any cost, demonizing the government and its role in defending the public interest in the process. While truly taking aim at waste in government is an admirable goal, a recent story of out of Philadelphia provides a cautionary tale about why we must protect funding for certain social necessities.

As a part of Philadelphia’s cost-cutting measures, the city has been closing down certain fire stations on a rotating basis in a process of “rolling brownouts.” Since these brownouts began, city firefighters have protested the policy, saying that they would harm public safety. Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Loyd Ayers dismissed these warnings and defended the city’s austerity plans, saying that the city “will continue to respond to your call and tend to any and every emergency that may arise in an urgent and timely manner.”

Yet the firefighters were proven right when a tragedy struck earlier this week. On Tuesday, a fire broke out in a row home in the Olney section of the city. The closest fire station, which operates Engine 61, was closed that day due to the brownouts. Thus Engine 51, which was stationed further away from the site of the disaster, was dispatched to handle the situation. By the time two children were pulled from the ruins of the row home, it was too late, as both had tragically passed away.

While the Fire Department’s Lt. Mike Grant maintains that Engine 51 got to the scene in “good order,” Mike Kane, who represents firefighters on behalf of Philadelphia Firefighters Union Local 22, estimated that the closer Engine 61 could’ve “been on the scene in half the time.” While Kane said that “nobody can answer” whether having a closer fire engine would’ve saved the lives of the children, he could say with confidence that the kids at least “would have had a shot. Maybe them kids would have had a shot“:

Two children were killed in a fire in the city’s Olney section Tuesday, and now an official from the firefighters’ union is questioning if Philadelphia’s cost-cutting “brownouts” of fire companies played a role. A 7-year-old and a 9-year-old were pulled from the row home on the 100 block of Sparks Street once firefighters were able to knock down the flame. The engine that would have been first on the scene, Engine 61, was browned-out, or closed for the day, as part of the city’s cost-cutting measures.

Fire Department Lt. Mike Grant said, “Engine 51 took over for them, they got here in good order.” On the other hand, Mike Kane, with Philadelphia Firefighters Union Local 22, says Engine 61 could have been on the scene in half the time. “Whether that Engine 61, being browned out, if that company was in service, they would have made a difference? Nobody can answer that, because we don’t have a crystal ball. What we can say is, maybe if they were there, they would have had a shot. Maybe them kids would have had a shot,” Kane said.

Scores of firefighters and paramedics protested the city’s brownout policy at the site of the fire on Wednesday. “We need $15 million. I’m not saying that that’s a pittance; that’s a lot of money. But $15 million will stop the brownout policy and reopen all of the seven companies closed in January of ’09,” said Ray Vozzelli, of International Association of Firefighters Local 22. Watch it:

The story of the Philadelphia firefighters bears a number of similarities to a fire last year in Obion County, Tennessee. Firefighters in that county refused to put out a fire at a local home because its owners had not paid the subscription fee for fire service that the county mandated. The firefighters actually stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground. After that fire, numerous leading conservatives including writers for the National Review came out in defense of the county’s policies. One has to wonder if their lust for reducing government spending at any cost will bring them to agreeing with a brownout policy that appears to be yielding lethal results.

Thousands of people will rally this weekend in several states in opposition to steep, ideologically driven budget cuts. A major labor rally is planned for today in Trenton, New Jersey, where Republican Gov. Chris Christie released a budget this week that “stepped up the pressure to slash [public employees'] health and retirement benefits.” In Indiana today, union members and their supporters are rallying against a bill by Republicans in the state legislature that would drastically reduce public employees’ collective bargaining rights.

In New Jersey, public employees clearly see Christie’s cuts as an ideological attack on their ability to organize and influence the political process — by weakening the unions ahead of upcoming elections, Christie may be able to flip the currently Democratic state legislature Republican, thus paving the way for a direct assault on collective bargaining rights:

“I think if there’s a huge Republican sweep, collective bargaining laws for public employee unions could very much come under threat in New Jersey,” said Jeffrey H. Keefe, a professor at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations.

Union membership in the state has seen a steady decline since 1983, when 822,000 workers, or 27 percent of the state’s workforce belonged to unions, according to unionstats.com. At the end of 2010, 637,000 workers or just 17 percent of the workforce were union members, according to the website. [...]

“We gotta get this guy Christie out of office, he’s killing us,” said John Dunphy of Kearny, a 25-year member of Local 194. “It seems like they’re picking on the little guy more than the big guys.”

In Indiana, though the Republican-controlled legislature says it will not advance a bill stripping public employee unions of collective bargaining rights, state House Democrats have vowed to remain out of state “until the ‘radical attack’ on working Hoosiers is over.” They want other bills on unions and education killed before they return, and union workers will gather at the state capitol for the fifth straight day to protest the legislation “they consider an attack on the working class.”

Over the weekend, MoveOn.org is planning rallies in all 50 states to “Save the American Dream.” MoveOn says the rallies “demand an end to the attacks on worker’s rights and public services across the country. We demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And we demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.”

The Main Street Movement protests will also move to Florida in the coming days, where Gov. Rick Scott (R) has proposed dramatic $5 billion cuts to the state budget while at the same time reducing tax revenue by $1.7 billion, mostly for corporations and the wealthy. Labor, civil rights, and Democratic grassroots groups are planning a day of action outside government office complexes and parks in major cities in the state on March 8. The movement began online: “It’s sort of an organic movement started on Facebook,” said one activist. “There’s a big movement afoot to oppose what’s going on in Tallahassee right now.”

The National Journal has a map of union protests going on across the country.

As the Main Street Movement of students, workers, and other middle class Americans erupts across America, many conservatives have invoked the legacy of former president Ronald Reagan to demand that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) not back down from his push to end collective bargaining for his state’s public employees. In a prank call with the Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy, where Murphy pretended to be right-wing billionare David Koch, Walker himself even fantasized about being just like Reagan.

Yet conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement.

Founded in September 1980, Solidarity was formed in Soviet-occupied Poland as the USSR’s first free and independent trade union. By 1981, the union had grown to 10 million people and became a powerful force for demanding economic and political reforms within the Soviet Union. Solidarity began to use strikes to demand these reforms, and the Soviets responded by jailing their leaders and cracking down on their right to organize. During his Christmas address to the nation on December 23, 1981, President Reagan condemned the Soviet-backed Polish crackdowns on labor unions, promoting the “basic right of free trade unions and to strike”:

REAGAN: The Polish government has trampled underfoot to the UN Charter and Helsinki accords. It has even broken the Gdańsk Agreement of 1980 by which the Polish government recognized the basic right of free trade unions and to strike.

Watch it:

In a radio address given the following October, the former president escalated his rhetoric. Reagan condemned the Polish government’s outlawing of Solidarity, and attacked it for making it “clear they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights — the right to belong to a free trade union”:

REAGAN: Ever since martial law was brutally imposed last December, Polish authorities have been assuring the world that they’re interested in a genuine reconciliation with the Polish people. But the Polish regime’s action yesterday reveals the hollowness of its promises. By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.

Although Solidarity was not an American union, it is important to understand that much of its political program at the time was much farther to the left than any comparable U.S.-based unions. Solidarity’s economic platform in 1981 called for worker-owned businesses, social control of the food supply so as to ensure that everyone was fed, and for workers to decide what days of the week businesses would be able to declare holidays, among other things.

As conservatives, including Walker himself, continue to fashion themselves as clones of Reagan as they face off with a new progressive populist movement across the country, Americans should know that Reagan’s views and actions may not have always perfectly aligned with those on the far right.