This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle, and Carol Ross joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss State Treasurer John Kennedy's comments on NGOs and whether or not they can be stopped. The panel also discussed Vance McAllister's upset victory over Neil Riser in the race for Louisiana's 5th Congressional District.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. State Treasurer John Kennedy says, "The best way to end NGO abuse, in my judgment, is to bring the process into the sunlight. No more burying the funding in the bowels of a 1,000 page budget. No more paying NGOs through intermediaries. No more backdoor funding them through hidden consulting contracts". Do you agree with Treasurer Kennedy or should NGO's be done away with completely?

Carol Ross started us off:

I think there should be a moratorium on these things until the state has fully funded its own priorities like public safety and infrastructure. Back when Edwin was governor he put something in called the urban slush fund in order to get votes from the minority representatives in the legislature. They’ve kind of morphed into these NGOs, and according to this editorial in the Advocate they’re fronts mostly fronts for political machines of law makers. NGOs have been scandals for years.

 

Warren Caudle added:

These things are HUGE problems in the United States, and not just in Louisiana. They are embedded throughout the entire ecconomy. One of them is the national football league. They’re a non-profit that pays no taxes. And to make it even worse, the owners of the teams are not non-profit, but the tax payers borrow the money, build the stadium, and they get paid off, when they get paid off the owners own the stadiums.
Should we do away with them? No, we should do away with the tax code so there’s no more need; everything is non-profit.

Mike Stagg Concluded:

Let’s look at the New Orleans Saints. Benson Tower was bought by Tom Benson and the state renovated it. The state then required all state agencies in New Orleans to move into Benson Tower at a much higher rent than in other building in the region. We are not only subsidizing the Saints, we renovated the Superdome, we give them all concessions from the games, we gave Tom Benson Benson Tower, and we require state agencies to rent office space from him. That’s welfare, that’s as much as anything any NGO is getting.

 

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2. Businessman Vance McAllister upset Republican Neil Riser in the runoff election for Louisiana's 5th congressional seat. What does this mean for Louisiana? 

Warren stated:

Oh my God what a breath of fresh air coming out of this race. The media is trying to make this out to be Duck Dynasty coming in and influencing the race. I don’t think that had 1-percent to do with anything. What this did was put a nail in coffin of this horrible lying politics that these consultants do where they go out and try to do nothing but assassinate the opponents character. This time, it was a good deal because I think they elected the right guy in Vance McAlister. We’ve heard over and over that negative ads work. I hope this proves negative ads can do your guy in.

 

Mike added:

The election turned on the televised debate on LPB when McAllister said he supported the implementation of Medicaid expansion in Louisiana. That got Democrats off the fence. McAllister at least seemed like a guy who was a pragmatist and not an ideologue. You can’t underestimate the roll that Medicaid expansion played in that race.

Carol stated:

The #1 thing was the stench of that Jindal/Alexander/Riser. That put Riser on the defensive immediately. The way Jindal and his cronies tried to help him, that was not help.
I don’t know why Democrats were so excited. This guy is so unbelievably conservative. He had lots of his own money and he spent lots of his own money, at least $800,000. Probably more by the end of it.  And never underestimate the power of Duck Dynasty.

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Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.

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