Obama Vetos Pipeline + Seattle's Minimum Wage?

This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelists Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle, and Carol Ross joined "Nathan and Bernie in the Morning" to discuss the latest in the Keystone XL saga as well as Seattle raising their minimum wage.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. President Obama plans to veto Keystone XL.

Your thoughts?

Warren Caudle started us off:

He said he was going to veto it and he did. I think the thing should be passed. I’m not anti-energy and anti-oil. I really believe that the whole thing with the Keystone pipeline is much todo about nothing.

Carol Ross posited:

This is no surprise. The president says the state department review is still ongoing and he doesn’t want to undermine established executive branch procedures. This coming from the man who through executive amnesty legalized five million illegals.
I wonder how those union members who were going to get good jobs building and maintaining the pipeline feel.

Mike Stagg started us off:

There’s only 50 permanent jobs coming out of this thing. This is all about politics. The Koch brothers are committing $800 million to the next election. They own the majority of the tar sands being transported. This is all about big money politics. Louisiana is sinking, we should be paying attention, but our politicians are in denial. We get no benefit from these tar sands.
This is a good move, he needs to cancel the whole thing.

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2. One business in Seattle is citing the city's $15 per hour minimum wage as their reason for moving 100 jobs to Nevada. Your thoughts?

Mike started us off:

There’s a crank in Seattle who wants to move his business. A shortsighted attention grabber. If you look historically at places that raise the minimum wage, it’s a stimulus to the economy because people at the lower end of the spectrum spend the money they get and put it back into the economy.
Henry Ford knew that if his workers couldn’t buy his cars he would not be in business, so he paid a fair wage.

Warren concluded:

The real thing is that businesses flow like water to the path of least resistance. They are going to go where there is a better opportunity. That’s one of the reasons why so many companies leave Louisiana. The cost of doing business here is so high.
I really don’t know. Both sides are going to claim victory on this thing. I don’t know. Whatever that company wants to do, they do.

Carol started us off:

We’ve had this conversation on this program before. Over and over research has showed minimum wage, first of all affects a small percentage of the population. It doesn’t really help low income families out of poverty. Small businesses can’t afford these increases to minimum wage. It’s been proven over time not the be the thing that lifts people out of poverty.

To listen to the full audio from our Wingin' It panelists, click the play button below: