Washington Examiner Monday headlines

Michael Barone - Daniels and Christie light fuse under GOP lawmakers

As congressional Republicans mull whether to address the government's long-term fiscal problems -- House Republican leaders are being pushed by the 87 freshmen to do so, while some Senate Republicans are seeking some bipartisan accords with Democratic colleagues -- two Republican governors barrelled into Washington with the message that the lawmakers better get moving.

In style they're a contrast. Daniels is slight, balding and spoke quietly from a carefully prepared text. Christie is large and spoke bombastically without notes. But in substance they were much the same.

Timothy P. Carney - In Wisconsin, it's the unions vs. the people

The ferment in Wisconsin is no workers' uprising against the rich and powerful. It is instead political muscle-flexing by a well-funded special interest group, which is limbering up for President Obama's re-election bid. Obama's campaign, operating as Organizing for America, is bussing protesters to the state capitol and manning phone banks to apply pressure to state legislatures. Obama himself has called Gov. Scott Walker's bill curbing government-sector collective bargaining "an attack on unions."

While liberal writers wax romantic about a workers' uprising (former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Twitter "Wisconsin is spreading to Ohio -- America's microversion of Tunisia and Egypt. People are taking to the streets to get their rights"), what we're really seeing is the labor movement acting as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

J.P. Freire - Wisconsin reveals class war between 'haves' and 'have yours'

To distract from the sheer avarice of this position, the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, and others are trying to get as many people as possible to protest and show some kind of consensus that Gov. Scott Walker's, R, position is unreasonable, even cruel. The numbers are impressive and the photos really do depict the us-vs-them drama, but not in the way union leaders and member hope because the chilling have yours subtext of every sign held aloft by a protesting union member is clear: We don't work for you, taxpayer. You work for us. Read More

David Freddoso - Walker: It's either this, or we fire 12,000 state and local workers

In an appearance today on Fox News, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, said that unless his budget fix is adopted, thousands of state and local workers will be let go in order to close a $3.6 billion budget hole. Read More

Mark Tapscott - Myths and truths on the Battle of Wisconsin, as told by the unionists and the facts

Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker, is really the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. You didn't know that? Then you haven't been listening to the teachers and state government employee unions protesting for the past week in the  Badger State's capitol of Madison. Read More

Mark Tapscott - A brief, illustrated guide to the national stakes in the Battle of Wisconsin

Blogger Doug Ross, as usual, has assembled all the key facts of the historical background to the showdown in Wisconsin in one handy place. "Throughout American history -- and as recently as the 1950s -- there were no unions for government workers," Ross writes. "Public-sector employees were expected to earn a bit less than their private-sector equivalents. The reasons they did so included an interest in public service, job security and reasonable benefits." Read More