State Rep. Kenny Havard, a Republican from St. Francisville, isn’t letting the New Orleans Saints’ division championship and opening round playoff victory change his mind about clawing back state funding from the NFL team and its owner Tom Benson, The USA Today Network reports.
“Until we stop giving away money to the Saints and other big businesses we can all just sit in traffic and have the dumbest damn kids in the nation,” says Havard, referring to a lack of funding for infrastructure and education.
Havard’s public effort to retrieve at least a portion of the Saints’ state incentives was triggered by some members of the team taking a knee during the national anthem early in the season to raise awareness about police brutality.
Havard says he will specifically seek to remove from next year’s state budget the contract that pays Benson about $2 million more than the market value of 323,000 square feet of space the state leases in Benson Tower in New Orleans.
