Wingin’ It Wednesday: Should Lafayette School Board President Candidates’ Absences Be Overlooked?

This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday," panelists Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle and Carol Ross joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss potential candidates for the next Lafayette School Board President as well as concerns from a group of attorneys general regarding Obamacare.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. Lafayette Parish School Board Members Rae Trahan and Greg Awbrey are considering a run for the school board president's seat.  Do you think a person who misses 25 percent of the Board's meetings in a year can effectively lead the Parish's School System?

Mike Stagg started us off:

Is this a strategy to get her to attend the meetings? By making her president? Is there a none-of-the-above option?
This is an important decision, but they’re badly divided. One of the board members is looking at running for a judgeship, so there might be some changes coming to the board shortly. This is a critical year. The elections of the fall could affect the board, but I don’t know how you can aspire to leadership if you don’t bother to attend the meetings. That’s the job for which they were elected. School board members are paid. It’s not a lot, but they’re paid.

Warren Caudle added:

The answer’s no. I think you’ve got some serious problems with the school board. The truth is going to lie somewhere in between on all this stuff.

Carol Ross Concluded:

I know some people will claim that Act 1 has caused some of this because of the changes in the law that gave more power to the superintendent. The question here is: Will anyone be able to lead this fractious board to work together, as well as with the superintendent?
Awbrey and Trahan, who are both running, are among the school board members who — last I checked — missed many meetings. The last posting I read that Nathan had was that the board was going to consider to fine themselves for the meetings missed. You’ve got to at least show up to understand what’s going on.

 

2. The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that were canceled for not meeting Obamacare's more rigorous standards.  Your thoughts on the current state of the Affordable Care Act in regards to the changes being made?

Carol stated:

When I think of the Affordable Care Act, I think of a piece of Swiss cheese: It's got holes all over the place.  These attorneys general, they have some very, very good points. Because the way the insurance subsides are going to be done, the attorney generals are asking how are they going to enforce this.
The other thing they’re really concerned about is the security, because while the government requires security in the private sector, this is a wide open deal. There’s no security in this healthcare.gov. It’s like Swiss cheese: It’s wide open.

Warren added:

This thing is more indicative of the real problem we got, which is the two opposing sides, and neither side wants to sit down and act like adults. On the one hand you have Mike and his group saying this is the way it’s going to be, and on the other side they say we aren’t going to fund it. Maybe we oughta just give them dueling pistols and sell tickets.
It’s a whole bunch of adults acting like kids, and that’s nothing new in Washington.

Mike stated:

So we’re down to the dead-enders: the 11 Republican attorney generals who refuse to accept the law as the law. These are the people who talked about the “death panels," the “socialized medicine," the people who have been talking about this long list of lies from the beginning. There is no credibility to this stuff. All of a sudden this is some kind of threat to the republic. Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves for continuing to harp on this. This is the law of the land. This is market reform.

Click the play button below for a full audio replay of the show:

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 comments section.