Standing in the middle of a big U-shaped bar at Sarna’s Classic Grill in Columbia Heights this morning, Gov. Tim Pawlenty spoke and answered questions for a good half hour at the Twin Cities North Chamber of Commerce Legislative breakfast.

Pawlenty focused on fiscal responsibility.

In discussing education, the governor portrayed the teachers’ union as holding the whip hand over school boards in terms of contract negotiations.

The most Minnesota school boards, explained Pawlenty, are unwilling to accept a teachers’ strike and this gives the union “immense” leverage in contract talks.

One key education reform would be reforming the contract negotiation process — there’s lots of ideas out there, said Pawlenty.

But none of this is going to pass the Legislature, Pawlenty went on to say, because it’s controlled by individuals who get enormous support from the teachers’ union.

“It ain’t going to happen (the reform) with this group at the Legislature currently,” Pawlenty said of the DFL-controlled House and Senate.

Pawlenty, as he has done at speeches across the country, depicted the federal government as not just tottering near insolvency but leveraged with debt at a ratio shocking even by recent financial services industry meltdown standards.

“Our own federal government is leveraged at 30 to one. And they can’t pay it back,” said Pawlenty, seen nationally as a potential Republican presidential candidate.

When people come to Washington to ask for money, they’re bringing borrowed money back, Pawlenty explained.