Cavuto: Cut union pensions because they don't need 'Chateaubriand' steak every night

Fox News host Neil Cavuto says that it's time for state and local governments to begin cutting union pensions because people don't need to have expensive Chateaubriand steaks "every night."

After voters in San Jose on Tuesday approved steep cuts to public worker pensions, police officers and firefighters in the city filed multiple lawsuits to block the reforms.

On Thursday, Cavuto told Democrats for Progress columnist Steven Leser that "you've got to target what right now is the biggest and most ballooning part of public costs across the country and that tends to be pensions, benefits."

"I think it's wrong to scapegoat the unions over this," Leser noted. "There's all kinds of other things that we could be looking at to raise money without attacking middle class workers, people who risk their lives for us -- you know, police officers, firefighters."

"It's the slippery slope. We're going to take this benefit away from them and in a couple of years we're going to take this benefit away from them," he added.

"Most Americans in the private sector don't even have these benefits," Cavuto argued.

"They should have them," Leser pointed out.

"Yeah, we should all have Chateaubriand every night, but we don't," Cavuto shot back. "We don't have that option. Let's wake up in the real world."

According to veteran wine writer Fred McMillin, Chateaubriand is "a succulent tenderloin encased between two slices of flank steak."

"The outer steaks were seared until black, then discarded; the tenderloin between them remained juicily rare," McMillin explained.

This dish is named in honor of François-René de Chateaubriand, a diplomat who worked for both Napoleon and Louis XVIII.

Union members in San Jose can obtain Chateaubriand steak every night (except Monday) at Tigelleria Organic Restaurant for $22 in nearby Campbell, California.

Cavuto reportedly has a net worth of $23 million.

Watch this video from Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto via Media Matters, broadcast June 7, 2012.