Leading up to Tuesday’s recall election in Wisconsin, political pundits were calling the vote this year’s most important voter action, other than the presidential election in November.

With his comfortable victory Tuesday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker became the first governor to survive a recall vote. So far, both sides in the bitter battle are talking about moving forward and trying to work together.

True, both sides are spinning the results, but they also seem to toning down the rhetoric.

The recall effort was launched by public-sector unions angry over Walker’s efforts to restrict their bargaining rights and his proposal to have them pay more for their health care and pension benefits.

The national union movement joined the political battle, turning the Walker recall effort into something of a nationwide referendum on public-sector unions. In that light, Tuesday’s vote could have national implications.

Walker’s supporters note that he closed the state’s budget gap and addressed the public-sector benefits issue that other governors also are targeting for reform.

Both sides spent heavily, with lots of outside money pouring into the state. Groups backing Walker outspent recall supporters, but enough money was spent by both sides for their the messages to get out.

Recall backers cried that Walker was trying to break the unions. But, in pushing for restraints on union bargaining power and expecting public employees to pay more for their health care and pension benefits, Walker’s efforts can be characterized in a different way. Instead of trying to break unions, his efforts were intended to put a brake on unions’ extraordinary power to extract benefits far more generous that those of most private-sector workers — meaning taxpayers.

Taxpayers around the country do want to see brakes applied to the power of public-sector unions.

In California this week, voters in San Jose and San Diego approved referendums that trim retirement benefits for city workers, adding more evidence to the national appetite to restrain and reform benefits for public-sector workers.

The message across the country is that public employees should contribute more towards their health care coverage and pensions — two of the proposals pushed by Walker, although he did push further.

The public is upset at overly generous benefit packages that exceed most private-sector workers. The extra days off with pay taken by government workers also irk private-sector workers.

The public sees unfairness in public sector contracts that allow early retirement, in the 50s or even sooner — with pension checks close to their pay checks when working. Stories of public-sector union employees boosting their overtime in the final years of work just to increase their pension is seen as gaming a system that’s already distorted.

For most Americans, it’s not about union bashing or breaking unions — it’s about fairness and controlling the costs of union contracts and benefits, paid for by taxpayers.

Public-sector unions bargain with politicians who are often beholden to the unions for political support — hardly a recipe for contracts that are fair to taxpayers. This relationship, complicated by routine overpromising and underfunding, has led to unsustainable benefit costs in state or city budgets.

Even President Franklin Roosevelt, seen as a champion of organized workers, feared the consequences of public sector unions. In 1937, he warned that “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”

Both sides will spin the Walker victory in Wisconsin. But there is little doubt that it will bolster the efforts of reform-minded governors, including Democrats and Republicans, to apply the brakes to, or roll back, public-employee benefits that have become serious threats to most budgets and unbearable burdens on taxpayers everywhere.