"As Gov. Scott Walker faced ridicule Monday for calling the building of a wall on the Canadian border a “legitimate issue,” his presidential campaign said he isn’t pushing for the idea.
“Despite the attempts of some to put words in his mouth, Gov. Walker wasn’t advocating for a wall along our northern border,” Walker spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement.
The campaign responded after Walker’s comment was widely mocked, from a Democratic senator calling it one of the “craziest” ideas of the campaign so far to fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, saying building a Canadian wall is a “pretty dumb idea” and a “ridiculous notion” in an interview on Boston Herald Radio.
Walker’s comments came during a recorded 30-minute interview Saturday with NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that was posted online Sunday.
“Do you want to build a wall north of here too?” Todd asked, noting that Walker has talked about building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to deter terrorism in addition to illegal immigration.
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire,” Walker replied. “They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at.”....
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"Conservative Labor Reforms
This transformation of the union movement should make government labor reforms a top conservative priority. Government unions are a powerful institutional force opposed to limiting the size and scope of government. They make top conservative (and politically popular) priorities—from tax relief to school choice—very difficult to enact. Creating them was a mistake that states should rectify.
Several states—such as Virginia and North Carolina—never permitted collective bargaining in government. States that did should return to this example.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did this in 2011. He signed legislation eliminating the power of unions to bargain over government benefits and work rules, and strictly limited bargaining over wages. This enabled Walker to transform a $3.6 billion budget shortfall into a surplus and $2 billion in tax cuts. Savings came not just from cutting government pay, but also from operating more efficiently.
Wisconsin school districts, for example, saved tens of millions of dollars through lower health insurance premiums. Previously, the Wisconsin Education Association (WEA) had required school districts to buy health insurance through WEA Trust, a union-backed insurance provider. Once school districts were allowed to shop around, they got lower rates.
Similarly, Wisconsin unions can no longer force their work rules on the state or local governments. The seniority system that forced Milwaukee Public Schools to fire Megan Sampson a week after naming her their “Outstanding First Year Teacher” has now become optional.
Unions threatened to end Scott Walker’s political career for taking them on. They failed miserably. Walker won a union-backed recall election handily. He won his regular re-election bid by almost the exact margin he first won in 2010. Walker’s reforms cost him no political support.
Exit polls in 2014 showed that Walker won the political argument over the role of unions in government. Wisconsin voters view government unions unfavorably by a 52–44 percent margin."......