her out of business and start public kindergarten, which they eventually did in our state. i used to talk about the maryville schools and the community of maryville when i was running for president 20 years ago and my friend, bill bennett, who was also a united states education secretary, was chairman of my campaign works say to me, "lamar, not every community in america is maryville, tennessee." and i know that. i know that. but i think a lot more could be. there are a lot of theories about what makes a good school, but i think principal roche may have it about right. it is a town school and when something happens, everybody shows up. and i think our new speaker of the house in tennessee, beth harwood, had it right, too, when she observed that our state legislature finish its work early, had some disagreements, but worked well together, got some results, and she said they had learned in kindergarten to

work well together and that maybe that lesson would be a good lesson for washington, d.c. well, speaker harwell, i think, is right. the example of the maryville football team and students i think is als also right. but everybody shows up when something is going on and when people work well together, good things happen. in our case, bipartisan is in the a goal. just as working well was not the goal of the football team. they wanted a championship. it wasn't the goal of the students. they would noted the scholarship but they knew that they had to work well together to get a result. they got a championship football team. they got the best school district in the state. perhaps that's a lesson for the united states senate as we seek to take the very difficult responsibilities we have here and earn the respect of the men and women of this country who hired us and sent us here to solve problems. that's why today i would like to

celebrate the success of the championship football team of maryville, high school and the championship school district of maryville, tennessee, and suggest that their lesson ever working well together might be a good lesson for us. i thank the president and i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that h.r. 1540, the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2012, be printed as passed by the senate on december 1,

2011. the presiding officer: is there objection? seeing none, without objection. mr. bennet: thank you. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, the senate adjourn until 11:30 a.m. on wednesday, december 7, 2011. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day that. following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the first hour equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: as a reminder, the majority leader filed cloture on the cordray nomination. unless an agreement is reached, that vote will be thursday morning. mr. president, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it

adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the

>> senator susan collins released a jobs plan to includes exattention of payroll tax cuts and funds infrastructure projects and eliminates some federal regulations on employers. they spoke to reporters about their plan for 20 minutes this afternoon. >> good afternoon.

i'm senator susan collins, and i'm very pleased to be here with my friend and colleague, senator claire mccaskill from missouri . every week when i go back home to maine, i hear the same refrains. people tell me that they are so tired of the partisan gridlock in washington. they say to me, why do there have to be democratic proposals or republican proposals? why can't you sit down together and come up with an american proposal? they are frustrated with the economy. they are frustrated that people can't find good jobs, and they want us to work together. they want us to work across the aisle to come up with a

bipartisan jobs plan. most of all, they are frustrated that washington cannot set aside partisan bickering long enough to agree on a real real realistic path forward to spur job creation and to boost our economy. well, today, that is exactly what senator mccaskill and i have done. we are introducing a bipartisan jobs creation plan that will help build a bridge to economic recovery. a bipartisan bridge to restore growth and to create jobs. senator mccaskill and i have done what we believe congress needs to do as a whole. we set aside our partisan differences and sat down and

negotiated on a solution upon which we could both agree. it required compromises on both of our parts. we took what we believed to be the best democratic and republican ideas as well as some of our own and today, we are introducing a solution in four different areas to help create jobs for our country. >> first, let me talk about tax relief for small businesses and the american worker. our bill would extend the current 2% payroll tax for employees that otherwise would expire at the end of the month. if we do not act to extend the payroll tax break,159 million

americans will face a tax increase of up to $2,000 starting next year. the last thing we ought to do is to allow an automatic tax increase to take effect when the economy remains so fragile. a tax increase that would hit every working american. we're also proposing that this 2% payroll tax cut be extended to employers on the first $10 million of payroll. that would help our small and medium sized businesses that are the economic backbone of our economy to create and preserve jobs. second, we tackle our nation's

infrastructure. every study that has been done shows that there is a backlog in every single state of needed infrastructure projects. our plan would up vest and expand funding to help rebuild our nation's crumbling roads and bridges and water systems. that's adding good paying jobs and ensuring that critical infrastructure needed for long term economic growth is proposerly maintained. third, we're looking to create jobs from a sensible regulatory reform. we focus on lifting the burden of uncertainty and cutting back the tangle of red tape that is holding back many businesses from expanding and adding jobs. we're making sure that the cost benefit analysis that it's done

on significant proposed new regulations looks at indirect costs on the impact on job creation. for example, another provision of the bill would help protect small businesses whom make a first time paper work mistake that causes no harm from being penalized for that error. fourth, job training. we need to invest more smartly in job creation programs. right now, we have a hodgepodge of federal training programs. we need to reduce duplication that the gao has pointed out, and we need to find out what really works. we would task omb with coming up with a study for consolidating

most job training programs under one agency and making sure that they're truly effective, that the training really is leading to jobs for individuals enrolled in these programs. we would also provide an innovative cluster development program so that states and regions can identify those trends and help to develop those strengths. our bipartisan plan is fully paid for with the 2% surtax on those who earn a million dollars or more a year, but -- and this is critical -- with a carveout to protect small business owner operators such as those who file subchapter s corporations and pay their taxes on individual

income tax returns. we wanted to make sure that we were not imposing a surtax on the job creators in this country. we would also, to pay for our plan, finally repeal the unneeded tax subsidies for the five largest oil companies which would generate additional revenue. i'd be happy to discuss our plan in further detail, but first, i'd like to introduce my partner in this endeavor,hzç

>> at the end of the day, that's

the essence of what we have to do. when i go home, people say to me, why aren't y'all figuring this out? interesting people who call on the phone are not saying compromise, and people watching cable news are not excited about compromise, but those watching "dancing with the stars" are, and those independent voters in my state are important, and they don't understand why this place is so dysfunctional. this is basically putting a stake in the ground saying washington can still work, there can be two people of different parties compromising, coming together on a bill that is responsible, it is thoughtful, it will work, and we believe can gain additional bipartisan support, and our job now is to go out and get as many as those folks as we can, colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us and push this across the finish line before the end of the year to accomplish what we need to accomplish on the payroll tax increase that's

looming, and it will also do a lot in terms of the extenders that need to be extended before the end of the year, and obviously infrastructure which is another issue that i think we're struck -- struggling to find the money to fund roads and bridges around the country. we'll be happy to take questions. >> have you calculated when you do the carveouts, talking about limits also and how much that takes out in term of the budget you're generating and whether or not you have talked to the budget leaders about the plan? >> i have talked to -- i've actually talked to both the democratic leaders and the republican leaders about this plan, so it's not a surprise to them that we're working together and going to release it today. let me give you some statistics. according to the irs, 390,000

americans file tax returns where it indicates that they earn more than a million dollars. approximately 13% of that number would be protected by the carveout in our bill, but that protects 70% of small business income. it's 13% of 392,000 filers that have income, earned income, of over a million dollars, but that's 70% of small business income, and we distinguish not to get too deeply into the weeds here, between passive investors and owner-operators, the act of investors. we're protecting the owner-operator who is actually on the front lines running the

business creating those jobs. >> do you think -- how do you think or what is your approach now to try to change that narrative because it's nearly impossible to say they can support the surtax. how are you with the carveout going to get them on board because this fight has been very political over the payroll tax cuts. >> well, let me just say that i think the carveout is essential here, that we are, in people's mind, what they say when republicans objected to the surtax is the small business that's running, whether it is a landscaping company or whether it's a string of dry cleaners, that they are actually out there and using this income in a way in terms of the sub s

corporation as going on their personal income tax. by carving that out and just leaving the passive investors and everybody else on their second million, i'm optimistic we can get more republicans on this bill, and i think that's one of the things that senator collins felt so strongly about was that that and increasing the number of businesses that get the payroll tax cut. we've gone from a $5 million payroll to a $10 million payroll, so we're making an even more generous tax cut to these same front line small business job creators, and i think by doing that, it takes some of the opposition out of the effort to tax those on their second million a little bit more, and we're going to be optimistic because of no other choice that we'll get additional republicans. >> [inaudible] >> just to add one thing to what claire has said, and i agree with everything that she said, but a substantial number of republican senators have said

that they oppose the surtax because of the impact on small business, so our bill eliminates that argument. >> have you both -- have you received the final from leadership that we'll have dualing proposals this week and then maybe discussions for a real final compromise, the elements of the bill, if this is not the final breakthrough bill, elements of this will be included? >> i don't want to give any impression that the leadership has endorsed this ever, but my hope is that when all the other alternatives are exhausted, that people will do the right thing and turn to our proposal, and because we've done so much work on it, it's flushed out. we believe though, obviously, we don't have an official score yet that it's fully paid for, and

it's a comprehensive approach, so i am hopeful that ultimately people will look to our bill or elements of it. >> senator, if cr carveout for the corporations seems so straightforward as a way to potentially get more votes on the republican side, why are we in december just now having gotten to that appointment after all of these previous debates about this proposal? >> well, it's all so complicated to do is correctly. we've spent a lot of time talking with tax experts, and i've been saying for some time that i thought we should have a carveout for small businesses, but then you get into passive versus active investors, and i

bound in consulting with tax experts that there's a well-developed body of tax law to define passive versus active investors in a business, and so it's taken some time to work through it, but here we are. >> and part of this is just, you know, whether or not you want to get to a compromise or whether you want to score political points. senator collins and i want to get to a compromise, and we're not interested in scoring the political points, and that changes the tone of the negotiation, whether or not you're trying to score a shot or whether or not you're trying to find legislation that can pass, and i think she and i have been really focused on finding legislation that could pass. >> did you think about including the potential unemployment insurance because lawmakers also want to extend that, and i think people think that's going to end

up in one big package with the payroll tax cuts. >> well, from my perspective, i thought we should focus on job creation and job preservation, and that's what our bill does. the transportation elements of it, which they felt strongly about, including directly translate into jobs, and we focused on the jobs element, but that's not to say that those other two issues are not important, but this is the jobs bill. >> senator collins? can you address two arguments from the republican side of one of the things that with the tradition that time around is a sunset, senator reid, for the surtax. do you address this in the bill, you said on numerous occasions you're introducing what would be a perm innocent tax for a temporary tax cut, and also the argument that tax cuts should not be paid for, a fundamental

ideological point for many republicans. >> i think the debate has changed somewhat on whether or not tax cuts should be paid more. when the deficit -- when the national debt hit $15 trillion it made all of us take a second look at anything that adds to the deficit or the debt, and i'm not saying that every tax cut needs to be paid for, but i wanted to work with claire to present a bill that was fully offset, and that's what we have done. your first question again? >> do -- >> these are one year provisions. >> 234-b8 -- >> [inaudible]

>> by the way, the issue is here, once again, trying to find a piece of legislation that we can get passed, and obviously paying for it, we can have arguments as to whether or not tax cuts should or should not be paid for. that's why we turned to this option that there's those who maintain not to pay for a tax cut that pay for themselves. i don't believe that, but others do. >> do you have an estimate for how much revenue you lose with the carveout, and in other words, if you didn't carveout businesses, how much do you get and how much does the tax improve the rate? >> we have looked at numbers, and we have obviously did a lot of information out there because a lot of proposals have been batted around. i'm not going to give you special numbers until we get an official score back because i don't want to put a number out there that they are working against or we're working

against. i want the official score back, and if we have to adjust, we will. we feel confident that this is going to be offset what we've done in terms of the money we've spent and the payroll tax cut will be offset by the revenues, be we'll wait for the official scores and adjust as we have to. >> thanks. >> [inaudible] >> that's anyone's guess at this point. >> the leadership. >> exactly. cbo is far behind due to the work due to the super committee's estimates, and i know they are struggling to catch up on bills that have been reported by committees, so we'll keep working with them. >> if this is seen as a viable alternative to the log jam out there, i would assume we'll get a score quickly. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> senate majority leader, harry reid, said today if work it not done with unemployment benefits, the economy will suffer. on monday, senate democrattings introduced a scaled back version of the proposed tax on millionaires, benefits for the long term unemployed have been extended several times due to

run out in early january. this is just under 10 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> republicans are doing their best to convince the american public that they support the payroll tax cuts. they are not in favor of raising taxes for middle class americans about 160 million of them. what a strange way of proving that's what they feel. we saw it on the senate floor last week, the proposal they made didn't even get a majority of the republicans. yesterday, republicans revised plan. if they had taken time to read the legislation, they would have seen that basically every piece in there is bipartisan in nature, including now, the tax on millionaires.

so unless there's something changing quickly, it doesn't seem the republicans are going to follow their leadership. leader mcconnell, speaker boehner both support extending the tax cuts. funny way of showing it. we cannot afford to let the extreme voices in the republican party force a thousand dollar a year tax increase for the middle class. fortunately, there's a small group of republicans who are beginning to speak out to do the right thing. susan collins, of course, we know what she's done. we've had public statements made last week by pat roberts saying it's about time. the people making a lot of money help solve some of the problems we have in the country. i'm happy to see democrats and republicans at least talking the right way.

i've been encouraged to see republicans expressing more optimism about a way to pay for the problems that we have. i talked about john, and he said, i quote, "a sense a change in mood when it comes to asking millionaires to pay their fair share. for the sake of the middle class, i hope the senator from nebraska is right." [inaudible conversations] >> progress is being made. we've had a lot of staff work and a significant amount of member work on this with the chairman and ranking members. we still have a ways to go. they had 113 different earmarks that we've eliminated quite a

few of them, and we're continuing to work on them. it's very important that we get this bill done as soon as we can. we do not want to have another continued resolution and speaker boehner told me that's how he feels also. >> [inaudible] >> i hope so. i don't have any reason to say they won't. i'm confident they will. you know, let's talk. i listened to my friend, republican leader talk about this and the judges, i'm glad we'll have a vote on this and words to that effect. we're not having a vote on it. they are cloture votes so we can have a vote. i -- and always understand in the private sector or government, if there's a committee, you know something's gone wrong, and that's what he suggested. in effect, we don't want just one person making the decision,

but a committee, and that's why the republicans are wrong on that. >> [inaudible] >> i'm disappointed it was not approved. we are making decisions about judges, but there's far too many optical dare. we just have a different outlook on dc circuit court. they want all republicans there, and that's not fair. [inaudible conversations] >> jobless benefits, we have to do that. it's really important.

there's two things that hurt the economy if question don't do them -- extending the payroll tax cuts and extending the unemployment compensation. i believe strongly that we have to do something with sgr, the so-called dock fix. this is not something to give the doctors a big fat present. it's something we have to do. this was the reason we're in the hole we're in now, a budget gimmick was done in the bush years. we have to get away from that. as senator kyl said, it's all monopoly money, and we have to use the overseas contingency fund to pay for that. i hope that's what they work out. >> [inaudible] >> we are not going to leave washington until we pass the extenders and pass the extenders

payroll tax cut. we have to do something with the payroll tax cut, unemployment compensation, only -- ominibus that we have to do. >> you won't leave washington unless they are done? >> don't intend to. >> [inaudible] >> we'll probably have a vote on friday. i can't do anything on it until tomorrow because it doesn't ripen until that time. hopefully the republicans have some proposals. they have been totally silent. as you learned probably earlier today, the house has not tried to do anything this week. they have given up. that's not a good sign. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> balancedded budget amendment, we'll have that before we go. it's not a must do. we'll do it because that's what the law says, but it won't take

much time. very short. >> [inaudible] >> i'm going to do it, i get it this morning. [inaudible conversations] >> the majority leader from mid afternoon today, senate republican leaders also spoke to reporters today on the nomination of ohio attorney general richard cordae to head the new consumer protection bureau and more than 40 # # millions denied in the overhaul law until structural changes are made. the briefing with republicans is nearly 10 minutes. >> well, good afternoon, everyone. what we thought we'd do here is take a few moments and describe for you our concerns about the cfpb, the consumer financial

protection bureau, and the reason we do to not believe anyone should be confirmed as director of the cfpb until some reform is enacted, and i'm going to call on our leader in the banking committee to walk you through the changes that really need to be made to prevent this from being a run away completely unaccountable agency, which is the way it was crafted to be, with that, senator shelby. >> thank you, leader. first of all, all of you know opposed the dodd-frank legislation, tried to -- what we approved, 45 # of us to the president, dealing with dodd-frank and ultimately the agency is said we have three things we'd like to bring up because we want accountability for this agency, which has known today as it's structured. one, we think it ought to be

subject to a council, not just one person with all the power in the world that are accountable to no one. secondly, we believe it needs to be subject to the appropriations process because the congress should have oversight. it ought to be accountable to the american people through the congress, and thirdly, we want to make sure that this agency is as considering rules will take into account the safety and soundness of our financial institutions and things like this. we have not heard from the president on this. the nominee, as far as i know, i have met with him, seems like a nice man and so forth, but this is not about him. it's about the structure of this, a powerful, i think, a monster, as far as future regulation to overregulate our economy, create more regulations and fewer jobs. that's why i oppose this nomination, and i believe that

the overwhelming majority of the caucus will too. >> let me -- we'll get back to questions in just a minute. i've also asked a number of colleagues identified in the newspaper as being targets as the president's lobbying effect on behalf of the nominee to join us, and be happy at this point to have any of them make their own comments about this particular nominee and the issues we've just described. [inaudible conversations] >> this is really the way this whole thing evolved. it's been highly disappointing. even when the treasury themselves brought forth the proposal to deal with the consumer agency, they, themselves, thought there should be a board. one of the reasons this agency can want move ahead is that rule making is vested solely in one

individual. it's unprecedented, and we just ask for a few common sense check and balances to be put in place. i think all tennesseeians, most would agree that for an agency like this that has such powers, powers to create rules that state ag's can sue companies against, not against regulations, but against rules they create, it really is unprecedented. i talked with the white house on a couple of occasions to say why would you not let this organization be institutionalized and to be a part of our government going forward and be set up in an appropriate way? why would you not think that's a bigger win than this political argument playing out now with an agency that all of the rules can be undone again 3weu just wog person who is different who comes after, so i'm very disappointed, especially in the

trash ri.-- treasury.for at least not trying to get a good government solution to thrks and certainly nothing the president has said nor anyone else changed my mind that putting this in place as it is now is an incredible, irresponsible agent to my congress. >> hoosiers want jobs. hoosiers want lack of regulation, and they see at least the enterprise in america that might bring us job hindered by overregulation. i stand with my colleagues on this issue because clearly, this is a case of tremendous overregulation without any control by the congress. even after we've expressed this to the president, to the administration for weeks and months, there has been no response other than send forward another nominee. i stand with my colleagues from voting against cloture so we

will not have a nominee until we have proper accountability. >> i actually voted for the dodd-frank bill, but i am completely opposed to appointing a nominee to head this bureau until we correct the very serious structural flaws that are in the bill. to me, it is inconceivable that in this time of tight budgets that we would create a new agency that is completely unaccountable in terms of its budget. under the dodd-frank bill, this agency's budget can be as high as $500 million. it's actually up to the head of the agency to decide what his or

her budget should be. this has nothing to do with mr. cordray who is clearly a qualified individual with a good reputation. it has everything to do with accountability for how money is spent in government, and it makes no sense for structure to be created no matter how noble the cause may be, where there's simply no accountability, no oversight for the budget. >> this is not about the nominee who appears to be a decent perp, and may very well be qualified. can you imagine if the republicans pass something like this and tried to put a partisan person as was originally decided into this kind of power? with no accountability?

no real transparency? in an agency that could be -- could suck it to the taxpayers $500 million, and never have to really explain why? i mean, my gosh, this is unbelievable that anybody even has any questions about it. like i say, it's not about the nominee. it's about a process that's running out of control, and frankly, by democrats who really have not thought this through. >> anyone else? okay. >> senator mcconnell -- >> yeah? >> [inaudible] >> well, normally, if you would send a letter down like this, you'd hear something back. i've not heard a word. i didn't feel it was undumb bent on me to continue to lobby them. we made it clear what we thought needed to be done as senator shelby and others outlined to make this a run away agency

accountable like every other agency we've been able to find in the federal structure, so, no, i didn't feel it was on me to call them. i thought they might call me. >> [inaudible] >> you might want to -- [inaudible conversations] >> let me just speak for myself because as you know from last week, there's differences of opinion, and i'm not in favor of raising taxes on working people. i do favor extending the payroll tax holiday for another year in

conjunction with job created proposals which we expect to be accountanted in a final version of this to the house of representatives to provide relief on the job producing side as well as tax relief, and if it's coupled with unemployment insurance, something for those who are currently unemployed, i think most republicans are very reluctant to raise taxes on anyone during this economic crisis we find ourselves in, but there may be others who have a different point of view, and if any of those people would like to comment to you, obviously, they can feel free to do that. >> [inaudible] >> in particular, create jobs right now, and the reason there's been a lot of discussion at the keystone xl pipeline because if there's any shovel

ready project in america, this is it. any project that would put people to work right now, this is it. any project that wouldn't cost the government a dime, this is it. i think that's appealing to a lot 6 people on a bipartisan basis and that's part of the thicks that might be included in a final package we expect to get over from the house of representative the. i'm going to take one more. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, i've had a standing rule not to comment on the republican campaign for president. it's interesting. all watching it, and looking forward to having a nominee, thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up this evening, leading our primetime --

>> knicks, new republican governors talk about policies they've implemented since taking office discussing approach to job creation, tax policy, education, and other issues while also looking at things they've learnedded while being elected. it's hosted by the national governor's association, and this is an hour and 10 minutes. >> the new all-stars, who you were just reapainted in that great video. i'll observe, not at all for the first time that i don't recall a year in which more first class public service talent was brought to the floor than 2010, and they were all on our side,

and just a remarkable new assortment. each one of these people is already making a mark, and some of them will make, leave just an incredible foot frippet on the history of their state in this country, but i just am so excited about the piewch of future of our party, but more specifically america because of the class of 2010 and each of you -- you know all about these folks already. we'll not take a lot of time with it, but we have here several of the best examples of what i'm talking about. i want to introduce the governor of new mexico, susanna martinez. i'd like to, but she couldn't make it this morning. [laughter] you're stuck with these four rather homely guys. [laughter] i also have one other preliminary. i've been reminded once, but the ever efficient staff came up and said don't forget to share with

the crowd that it's scott walker's birthday today, but -- [applause] but that turned out to be inaccurate. [laughter] >> that's right. >> scott, you do have a birthday sometime, and we'll take this opportunity to wish you one. [laughter] >> it was on election day. >> all right. well, then you gave a birthday present to wins. it's actually our host, rick scott's birthday, to everybody ought to congratulate him. [applause] >> let's just go. >> our format now with our aim point is 11:30 that for each of these tremendous leaders in turn to share thoughts and reflections with you, and if you will, please, prepare your own question, we'll make that request to our fellow governors

as well as to the crowd, but we'd like a large portion of the 70 minutes to be directed by you to topics of your interest, so let's see. you got alphabetical order, there's right no left, i think you should start with the hosts and see who has been so gracious and help put all of this together for us. rick, you're off to just a great start fiscally and in terms of reform, and just -- rick's a great example, well, each of the fellows are about -- i remember encouraging them at the meeting between their last election and their inauguration, this meeting last year, to move quickly, move decisively. do the things you know need doing without equivocating and are reminded of the wisdom of one of my favorite country western songs is if i shot you

when i should have, i'd be out of jail by now. [laughter] and -- [laughter] and if anyone took that advice to heart, it's rick scott. >> yeah, thank you, mitch. well, i think the democrats wish i had not done quite as much. they were frustrated because i did what i said what i was going to do. they were -- they were just shocked. i walked in with about a $4 billion budget deficit, so we balanced that, and for the first time in 20 years, we started paying down debt. we increased the debt level in florida by a billion dollars a year. this year, we will have paid down quite a bit of debt. we said we were going to cut taxes. we cut almost half the business owners who paid taxes to the state now don't pay the taxes. we don't have an income tax, but a low business tax of 5.5%, and so we cut the business tax out

for half of the business owners. the people paying tax, we cut property taxes over $2 million. we started drug screening welfare recipients, and we said, look, this none is to be for the benefit of the children. i know the parent or grandparent can take the money, but not someone using drugs so you have to be drug screened. we got rid of teacher tenure for teachers, and we have ten charter schools in the state. would be nice to continue that. looks like that's going to continue. we provide scholarships for individuals kids going to poor performing schools. we found a thousand regulations that we're getting rid of. some we already have. the rest we'll get rid in the next session we start, and doing all of these thing, and i apologize to anyone who came to the city to ride the high speed rail projects. we killed that.

[applause] some of the theories of why i actually supported that is the people were going to sight orlando to take the high speed rail to tampa. you can go to california and do that, we'll they will never be able to fund either. we did those things, and it workedded. jobs have come back. we now have generated 118,000 private sector jobs and net jobs of 107,000, and that's in a state that's four years running lost jobs each and every year, so just cutting taxes, getting regulation, giving -- i got rid of one agency that we not only zone things locally, but thought the state was smarter and went through zoning at the state level, so we got rid of that. jobs are coming back. the mood's changed. our tourism is up 7% this year.

the -- the biggest thing is jobs are coming back. that's what we've done by no -- i'm doing all the other things all governors are doing, and others did it in advance. i'm trying to come up with all the money that mitch came up with with transportation to -- which would be nice -- it's a more difficult time to do that right now, but that's what we've done. >> thank you, rick. john kasic with a quiet 11 months like walker, but nobody who knew john expected anything different, and you'll all know what i'm talking about when one thing i'm admired so much about john is he understands intuitively and never misses a chance to express to people that all of these prince. s we hold dear are not about the folks doing well now, but about the folks we want to do well in the future, and that it's all

about preserving upward mobility. we know that, but not everybody stops long enough to make it plain. john, you always have, and all of your different capacities, and it makes you, i think, a terrific spokesman for things we believe in, and it's one reason you're off to a great start as governor. >> isn't mitch daniels one of the greatest we've ever seen, huh, as governor of a state? [applause] that's right before i'm fixing to steal jobs out of his state. [laughter] just kidding. we face -- look, actually mitch was a great role model for me to look at how he moved in indiana, but for me, it's simple. i was in the congress for 18 years, and i was involved in the balanced budget, and then i was out for ten years, and that's the best thing i ever did was get out of politics for awhile and understand how the real world works. when i came in, it was not a matter of what the politics are of moving quickly. we were in the ditch.

we were in a ditch in ohio. we lost in six years 600,000 jobs and only two states lost more. one was michigan, which you can understand because the auto industry, and the other state is california, which is filled with a bunch of w whrks -- whack-a-doodles. it was all because we did not establish a good business claim. we had an $800 billion deficit, and, you know, i'm not a big one for cutting to tell you the truth. i think, you know, in any budget you can cut, but that's not really my interest. my interest is i guess kind of the steven jobs approach which is offer the customer a better product at a lower price. . .

lawbreakers into the state prison next to theoretically somebody that could be a murderer, a rapist or drug dealer so we are confining them in the community setting where

the public is safe and where they can be fully integrated back into the community because huge tank those people out of the families and you've got a big problem with the children, and we've actually passed that as well. that is something people wanted for about 30 years and we got it done. we used to do multiple prime contract and when we built public buildings to have a contractor for every construction. that had been in law for 34 years. restricted out. there's only one single prime when building the public building know how you its estimated this would save between 20 to 25%. you know we also privatize our development department. i know terry branstad has some believe could on something similar but we believe the economic development out to be moving at the speed of the market not at the size of the statute because i once saw a race between a statute and a glacier and the glacier one so

we've created this not-for-profit entity and filling it with people who can actually speak the language to the ceos, and i myself engaged constantly almost every day talking to ceos across the country and in spite of my state. we are then going to power that organization with liquor profits that have been located in space since the 1920's. they need to go out and do their job i think all these governors are doing a remarkable job it's just kind of a twist i think from one state to another. we are up to over 40,000. we've engaged in 190 project starkly where we have met with companies and in that regard both by saving and creating new jobs directly we've been involved in 43,000 jobs and frankly, folks, all that matters are jobs but at the same time we

cut our taxes we kill the death tax, something i wanted to do for 18 years in washington and we got a done anno hi yo we also have the income tax law word, but you know, we are still at a disadvantage to people down here with a zero income tax and we provided a tax credit for anybody that invests in small business and know how you and holds that investment for two years. so, on the regulatory side of you want to come do business we will figure out a way to do it. if you are a yahoo! we will shut you down. but we don't have dhaka and silly regulations and no idea what least when we find them we change them and we move very quickly. so we are trying to create an environment in the state where families are going to have work, they are going to have a courier and everything is based on that, every single thing designed going forward there are issues we all face like work-force training what does that mean? training people for a job that

exists so they can have a lifelong career. those are the things we think about. we are thinking about leasing our turnpike. we studied with what they've done in indiana. not sure we are going to do yet. we might lease eight or bond instead of the numbers are right but think that the infrastructure improvements we can make a know - if you're able to do that that leads to greater productivity, more job creation. that's what it's all about. and i think republicans -- that should be our focus. if it is something that can make it easier for an entrepreneur to be successful, if it can ease the way for businesses to expand or if we can pick them up from places like illinois or connecticut they don't have it right and go and do it and for all those that worry about the country, i was down there in washington for a long time and when i left, i knew for that in years i was out that the change was going to come from the states. that as we did a better job and should results we learn from one

another and finally maybe those folks in washington would learn something about what really works, and i think it is fundamentally this. look at a problem, try to fix it, strip the politics and keep politics to a minimum. that's the new model in my opinion, 21st century new model for a politician that is truly a public service. bring your jobs to ohio. we will work with you. >> ohio was a lot of fun to compete with before you got there. [laughter] the competition is better and a free populated neighborhood and so forth have been on the midwest longer-term i will leave it at that. now, you know, over the course of time in politics we've been

coming up and up in these readings it doesn't matter who does it come a good place to do business there is only a few states ahead of us and when we thought we would catch them along comes so it's harder to climb over tennessee, but bill is a natural for this job. you saw it the minute he met him and he has shown an already and jumped at least to an outsider bill without a whole lot of rancor or the kind that sometimes gets stirred up into things like teacher tenure, a major education reform as well as fiscal restructuring, so tell us how you did get. >> we had a lot of help but it occurred to me as i was listening to rick and john and the other governors talk about if you or you're listening to everyone, you think it has some sort of programming machine that

they put these new governors and because they all come out talking about the same thing, talking about education reform, addressing tenure and charter schools availability. they all then talk about budget reform. everybody was anywhere from half a million to 5 billion upside down because they've been relying on stimulus plan money and they are all address in job creation. but to be honest with you we are all doing that and it's because of what works. it's how we got elected back to what works said it's how we got elected, too and it's interesting in the first session the democrats kept saying the biggest issue is jobs and you don't have a jobs plan we want to see legislation addressing jobs. and i said i don't think that is how jobs created. fred smith, founder of fedex, one of the agreed to businesses and tennessee's great business as well has a chart he keeps in

his office and job creation is a direct reflection of the investment. until the private sector is willing to invest capital new jobs created, period. no government has ever created a new job. we've attracted the good environment, etc.. so what we've tried to tell is our job is to make this the best place for people to invest in capital because capital finds the best return. it can't -- it's going to go where it can get the best return. our job is to make certain the regulations are the most reasonable, and the opportunities the greatest for job creation and that's what we focus on doing. within the government's it was about $1.5 billion of the one time money that made the stimulus plan money that had been used to balance and we were able to basically we bet out and i was proud that in today's overly partisan will our budget actually was about 4% lower than the year before passed

unanimously in the house and the senate because we got some breaks in terms of some things that worked out, but we really did go to all but the alternatives were and why this was the right course of action. how many people have read the book sieging the republic. has anybody read it? we have a book to allow your. mitch will get embarrassed, but it's a great reading. it's a great primer for how to do state government. mitch has been doing this for seven years and for me it was like skipping two grades in terms of understanding what works well. one of his favorite phrases is people will be surprised how much government they don't mess. within that is a situation we've found so many places we were doing things that you would

never do with it was your own money. you just wouldn't. and so we really started making those adjustments and changes and every department head if you were starting this over again and if it was your own business would you organize it the same way? starting over again. we are in the process of doing that and that's really painful because you end up addressing things people don't want you to address and a means we will have fewer employees in the future than we have now. we have fewer now than we have had in the last ten years. but along the way this painful decisions with the alternative is people would get that and the final thing that we focus on like everyone else is the education reform and for me it's simple. in one generation, 20 years of america we've gone from being number one and education to 19. okay? in 20 years. and we can't compete that way within that going from one who

19 our own state within the 40's in terms of education payment. so, it's people get sick of hearing me talk about what we're doing is not good enough and why the status quo doesn't work but that's why we address the tenure and using data to track the performance related to the teacher evaluation a lot of other things and we will continue to be relentless about these because that's what we think really works. >> space, you have done courageously things similar to what was done elsewhere, but because of where you did it and those who were in your state to disagree with it, you've drawn more than your share of recall because of that, but you've

prevailed, and you've done it with a smile somehow and you're on your way to your fourth election as governor. [laughter] some sort of record. we are incredibly proud and eager to help you. tell us about it. [applause] >> we had the occupied madison movement before there was occupy wall street. we are familiar. in fact i was in nashville with bill and i had protesters of and they were all apologetic. i used to people being from another state to protest. the same thing happened in des moines so we are used to it. any time you do something difficult it's good for your state and your country they will disagree. let me just go back for a second. i was thinking about this earlier. it is a phenomenal crop of new governors from a great group of governors to begin with, and we

heard that from the last panel as well but i was thinking back about a year-and-a-half ago almost two years ago i guess now in 2009 when i called a job interview to be the ceo of my state and i did an interview aired of the state of wisconsin telling people what i would do to take over the state government and really identify that i felt there was a crisis that we faced in the economic crisis, the fiscal crisis and crisis in confidence in the government. so we took office we didn't wait in fact i remember the report into the race if you haven't even unpacked yet and you've done all these things. i said it was simple. you are coming over taking over a company that is in a crisis you don't wait a year or six months you start the very first day to take over the job so we call the legislature into the special session on january 3rd the tackle, first off we took on the economic crisis. we called it a job session. we understand people create

jobs, not the government. so we get the government out of the week. the cash the tax cuts from the manufacturing's and we did tax cuts, property-tax freeze for the next two years, we did all these things off the bat with taxes. we did a regulatory reform and we put in place major reforms to cut through the red tape figuring them and structures that is one of the biggest barriers putting more people to work and we knew that litigation was huge failings and as we passed some of the most aggressive toward reform in the country in the first months we were in office. we made it easier like the trusten and indiana people play a more active role in just the companies but the workers and farmers and others directly in the health decisions because they can control the health care cost we will have a department of commerce which is about promoting condoms also about regulating we will do what

others have done and we will place what we call the wisconsin economic development appropriation so as john mentioned we could respond at the speed of business not at the speed of government it had results. we saw after three years before my election in 2007 to 2010 wisconsin had lost 150,000 jobs. in the first six months of this year after the reforms, we saw nearly 40,000 jobs increase. and while we have had which alleges like everybody else the last couple of months we are still seeking a positive net increase in growth and for what these in the level we saw probably equally important not just in the numbers and jobs created but every year the statewide chamber of commerce does a survey of job creators. a year ago under my predecessor you know how many people felt wisconsin was in the right direction, 10%, 10% of the job creators in wisconsin that was in the reduction.

the number went to ten to 88% to 88% said wisconsin was in the right direction. >> we picked up some interest obviously we got more focus on the issues we did we picked up interest nationwide as well. i'd like to think some day i would like to be competing with others to see here. we were in the bottom of those rankings, two years ago we were 43 and last year we were 41. this year after the reforms we went up 17 spots, the fastest increase of any state in the country. and the reason for it was because people were so hungry. there's a lot of businesses in my state and others that are hungry to put people to work. they are just scared to death as to what the government is going to do to them next. i get why they are reluctant to add jobs. in the allied attack on the challenge the ones in the budget

by raising taxes on individual 66%. raising the business is 46%. mitch and i ran to chicago and i was gracious he said it was like living next door to the dysfunctional family down the block. [laughter] - what come up from below is i need to be a little more gracious. but on either case mitch and i predicted would be a year later they would be back raising taxes again. it was six months. six months later in the illinois the tax increases in places like illinois connecticut now they didn't build the budget out, so many have walked through the state they've seen the tecum mix exodus their luck with the multi-billion dollar deficit william of thousands of employees shutting down six or seven different facilities that is a contrast. that is the contrast between what we offer and others out here offer and what our colleagues on the other side are doing across america. so, we took on the economic crisis. we took on the fiscal crisis in

our state like all these other governors we had the largest structural deficit the face the bleakest it faced. i came up with a $3.6 billion deficit. our budget is now the 300 million-dollar surplus because we make the long-term changes. most people didn't pay attention when in the s&p lowered the federal government but in our case we didn't do as well as part of rico. we didn't get the upgrade it was on the movie's budget because we made fiscal structural changes we didn't rely on the money from the federal government. we have to make a long-term decision. we have to start thinking more about the next generation than about the next election. these other governors, the governors in both parties face deficits there's four ways to consult a budget deficit you can raise taxes which of us want to do. can lay out thousands of public employees which in our state we want to reduce the number of employees across-the-board

layoffs don't help public/private you can cut and deficit services or put in place real reforms and what we did in wisconsin with a vast majority of the budget is to the local government we said we you're going to in power the state and local governments to be able to put in place the reforms that allow them to balance the budget and still protect service and that is where the last part john was right. it's not that it's easy because it's not, but the tough stuff is making the government work where it is supposed to and as republican governors that is why i am excited to be a part of this group and be a part of a policy group now we have to find ways to not just balance the budget to make it work and this is just one example. in the forms we put in place it wasn't just a dumb to balancing the budget we empower the schools to balance their budgets and put more resources but in the classroom. in green bay where the world's champion and will begin after the indianapolis and the super bowl in february.

statin about ohio state wisconsin? >> about as good as the championship we are going to play saturday against michigan state. [laughter] >> john always loved to kid about football. but in the end, capano is a great example. the school district took the reforms that we gave them by no longer being enslaved by collective bargaining. and instead, they were able to use the reforms not just to ask for the reasonable pension and the health care contribution but to go to the free-market and buy health insurance. that saved them so much money that the actually hired more teachers, word classroom size and set aside about $300,000 for america. what we did with our reform isn't just about balancing the budget was in power in the states and schools and local government to be able to hire and fire based on merit, pay based on performance and ultimately put the best and brightest in the schools and in our local government positions

all across the state. that's about making the government work better. and that's what republican governors are about. balancing the government and holding the line or cutting taxes. in the few areas the government does have a role we are going to make it work better. >> i wish you hadn't brought of illinois because every time it comes up, i have to watch my mouth. [laughter] in these kind of defense it was the olympics decision coming out and chicago was just electric. there's grandstands and people running around with t-shirts, we are going to win. we thought we might get a spillover even or to and be falling. so the midmorning comes up and not only did they not win, they didn't make it out of the first round of voting. shocker. i'm speaking at some big crowd to give a talk and taking

questions and some guy says to me but is your reaction to the olympics? the first thing that came to my mind what is the world coming to when chicago can't fix an election any more? [laughter] with the crowd thought it was funny. [laughter] like newsweek magazine thought it was funny. the governor of illinois did not agree. so there was -- evin i'm not quite old enough to remember this but in the early days of game shows, groucho marx part of the thing was a few said the magic word like that it came down and you 150 bucks or something, right, so somebody had, two or three of these guys said the magic word. i think everybody did. results. you know, but we do for a living

is not a game but if it were the results would be trumped. the trump meehan and they lost the principles however well stated, the personal attacks and governors are in their results business. that's why it keeps coming up here. i felt i was well put by all of you, and it is the case of the reason of these guys are already such tremendous success is they personify something i believe many of our republicans come some of them in other capacities, don't always think about. and that is if it is a tremendously solemn duty to keep the government to the size and shape and scope that it should be and not at least a single dollar on something unnecessary, and bill was talking about all those things you look at and really don't need to do that all that's jobs lost but there is an equal responsibility to use the

dollars you do spend as well as you possibly can come in and that is what you just heard from these fellows and that is where you are going to hear for the balance of their tremendous career. i hope ytd free bhatia. i don't want to wind up here begging, and i thought mitch was going to mask a tap dancer something that the last session. i hope we are going to see a question but just in case, alaska one of the group. scott, you said there are four ways to deal with an imbalance, and i would suggest there is a fifth and that is gimmickry, and i know we found a ton of them when we got there. bills stuffed in the drawer so you can shove them into the next fiscal year, don't fund the pension programs when your fiduciary duties is to do it, things like this. i'm guessing the mess each of you came in to do is that you found some gimmickry.

does anybody have a choice example or two that they would like to share with the group? >> why a democrat was very fiscally responsible so it's one of the things that they did use the stimulus plan money for ongoing expenses. but the by and large i think one place where you see gimmickry happening is when some states go in and put together incentive packages and they say okay we are going to do xy and z and help build a road and put to better training programs, but then they also give tax credits down the road and that's real money. it's a foregone revenue but some people don't count that as real money and you are seeing some states that some of the bills are coming due for the first and fourth, revenue, and i think that is fairly widespread peaden

>> it is indeed -- the whole subject of how the states compete, which has drawn some criticism is legitimate i think and something all of us ensure were being pretty careful about. >> we just went through that. we have a company called chiquita west and the same time we had kentucky come in and we have a pretty tough regimen. it's the return on investments we really don't want to get outside of the two-year window, and i think if you don't have the discipline then you end up creating the corporate welfare pass the money out and sometimes with the site selector settled know if we have any in the room, but they play a game in many respects some of the people these to work with on wall street figure bloodless they are out there forcing us to compete but if we all of a certain discipline and not to give away

the store there may be a couple projects we are right down to a couple of less. every once in awhile you may do something extra special, but i think you really have to have the discipline or you will be taken to the cleaner. the other thing i want to comment on in terms of gimmicks well, i was one of the architects of the 97 budget agreement. when i left in 2000 we had a $5 trillion surplus, and of course it was all blown and now trillions and trillions in the whole. one of the hardest things to do i think is to change the culture, to change the culture of the legislature come to change the culture of the people and the executive branch, change the culture of the bureaucracy because if you don't go about changing the culture and the same problems crop up again and it's extremely difficult. it's challenging in the short term when you have a crisis you

can get things done and it's pretty breathtaking everything people appear have done. but our next job is to apply go. how do you change the culture. did you get a lot of that done in indiana do you feel? >> we like to feel we did. we went to pay for performance in the first year we could and the second year and we rode the service laws and were still due process protection and every worker in the ammonal who hasn't paid with federal money five elbe six is an employee to do good job something good will happen to you, don't do a good job and, you know, you get a chance to improve. we reward people aggressively spot bonus and we have an annual award particularly for those individuals or groups who find a creative way to save taxpayer dollars were spent the better, huge emphasis on that and

performance reviews are going on right now to pay people. you were always chasing the still government, you are always going to chase the rabbit of truly high performance. i do think we have grounds for saying the real improvement can happen to the dewey post the corridors of the state office building, the posters that show the metrics congratulations for the department of xy and z for the best performance. we try to instill in people with a fault what we are doing here is supposed to get better even though we don't have -- we are a monopoly and we don't have the competition that ordinarily drives you that way. >> it's good to hear the ongoing saga in indiana because our pay for performance plan we

initiated because the reforms based on indiana so we want to continue to see that kind of success because we want to have that in wisconsin as well. but on your question about 1/5 point, you are right. unlike bill, i got a predecessor who was not fiscally responsible. in fact he put several million or about a billion-plus of stimulus money into the budget to handle the medicaid school shortfalls so it wasn't used for one time purposes or infrastructure. it was plugged into the medicaid school index so that as part of what drove the structural deficit to begin with. then he wrote over the past two budgets and you will appreciate this, he took a billion .3 out of the transportation system and rated that in you is that so i had to back debt and not just to balance it because economic development and if i don't provide the system i am dead,

and then on top of that he read about $200 million of what we would call the injured patients compensation so we repaid that on top of it. so, and i sure a lot of governors around here with similar inheritance where it was coming in like having one or both of your hands tied behind the fact it does raise an interesting larger context issue of not only what we inherited and how we got there in the success. but like you do with the federal government, that is largely the contrast between what republican governors are doing to tackle the tough decision. it's why moody's felt the very positive somebody was honest about budging we are not seeing that in washington. it has the midrange consequence people like my friend paul ryan pointed out where the wheels start to fall off but it also has a long term, and i'm talking about my kids generation intact

as well. any of you read this new book by the founder of gallup it is a pretty amazing insight out there about the upcoming jobs we are talking about about 2% gdp. chinese at ten. if we don't change that come 30 years out our kids are going to be living in a world dominated by china, not by freedom driven by the united states. the reason we are leaders of the free world is because the free enterprise system. we have the financial might to do what is right in terms of the larger rocky bills we have in the constitution. we don't have the 30 years if we continue down this path, and i believe you don't change that until you get your fiscal house in order and put your hands in the open doors devotee innovators, steve jobs, meg wittman and all the other folks out there, rick scott, we don't change that and so anyway what we are doing in our states is yet again another a good recipe for what has to happen in

washington and for the short, the midrange, and particularly for our kids in the long term. >> let's figure for a second washington gets on its own weight. i assume that. waiting for them to fix some things like waiting for the dough. but i believe the republican governors have got -- and we talked about this yesterday. we have to have a very focused demand from the federal government. you are going to continue to give us a headwind, give us the flexibility to design some of these programs coming and yet the national press i assume i don't know who the heck is out there but if the federal government mentioned if they would give them flexibility to manage medicaid and that doesn't mean spend medicaid dollars on the highway projects like they were doing 15 or 20 years ago, as you know, but to give us the flexibility to manage medicaid. i have no doubt that we would cover more people at a lower price with a better quality

outcome. the same is true on job training. let us manage our own job training money. we are not going to spend on highways or cover-ups. you can put whatever string you want but gives us the chance to manage these programs. if you can't do anything else, let our people go. beat tough to keep demanding it because what they are doing by not giving us the flexibility on a program like medicaid frankly it results in more pain for poor people, and we have an opportunity to cover additional people if we have the flexibility. this dual eligible i have never yet met a person in washington, none of them, biden, sebelius, any of them that doesn't say we ought to fix the will eligibles. what are we going to do something, this is a big, big problem for the state's coming

and i frankly just can't quite get it. i know they want to keep controlling everything, but they can't still keep some control but they are really, really -- ever tax payers -- >> i know what they're worried we are going to spend it on the federal believe somewhere. okay then force us to spend it but to give us our money coming and we have to be reasonable in what we ask them for but this is just ridiculous. especially since they want to mandate more programs and no flexibility. >> first off federal money is free money. the first budget this is federal money you don't have to worry about it. it's free. then they won't give it we have a medicaid program that has worked for over five years and we get the extensions. every two weeks we get an extension. we passed a great medicaid reform bill. we can't get any response. why won't the improve it? >> occupy washington.

spec they send all these programs down with all these strengths and then they try to get the special-interest groups to attack you for not accepting the money. so just stop spending. either raise their taxes. if i don't do the right thing for medicaid guess what, i will get reelected. it doesn't make any sense what they are living. >> you mentioned some of the things you've done in indianan to change the culture and i'd like to ask each of the governors to give examples of things that we are doing. one of the things we are trying to do is move from the entitlement mentality that we've had in the agencies and departments to really service mentality and how we can honestly serve the needs of the constituents and i would like to have each of you share some examples of things that you've done in the different departments and agencies in the state government to move from that entitlement mentality that we here we see from the

democrats to but i thought it was kind of interesting wall street journal just put out the best and worst managed states and california is the worst and illinois is the second worst and they both have the mentality, the entitlement mentality how can we tax people more? are you would like to see what are some of them examples where you've been able to move to the service mentality? >> i can give you a small and quick one and then come down the road. the one that flashes to mind part of the mentality that you are talking and that is the use it or lose at the ocean and people in government, no one else would think as we but people in government want to spend whatever you are about to spend by spend it otherwise you might not get it next year which is terrible. we call that since the fiscal year we call it the june balloon and we look really carefully to

make sure the rate in may or june is no high year than it has been and if it is the telcos people -- we kill those people. [laughter] one of the demonstrations and the rest. >> much better. [laughter] >> we are learning. >> in the interest of brevity. >> we made a point from the beginning and i know if you are a leader or colleague your job is not to get rid of every dollar it is the reverse will be judged on a come evo you read on that and i think it's part of getting people to conceive of the mission of public service and a different way. >> what we did was we took our budget and the first thing we

did is we said every line has -- has something we can measure whether we will get it resolved and last year and to $615 million said this year i will veto more because there is no measurement. anything that we have proven didn't have a measurement that i thought was questionable and said i'm going to prevent this year but i want to profit next year so we said on every line if we cannot find a measurable result we are not going to do enough before the budget. that is in the private sector the expectation is you have to reduce your cost every year. if you say to the auto companies to have to reduce your cost two to 6% a year every agency on top of everything else you have to come up with a full percent reduction through just efficiencies. no one thought how can you even think about doing that? because they've never had to do it in the past. the biggest thing is having a measurable results for every dollar of that we spend. >> we have a lot of success, and

it is amazing what the will do for a bureaucracy. we have reduced backlog in the tax appeals, we've improved the ability to use the crime lab. i'm sure you are all doing this the stigma. you have to look at the underutilized assets. rick did that all the time to read the underutilized asset in the private sector you have to get rid of it somehow. we've sold the one prison and privatized the operation of a verse. is making a difference in our collection. we look at the turnpike medish already did it. we have a real problem we use the word privatize and somehow what scares people so i have to talk about a better word than privatize, but it's to take a look at that. the bonuses and all those things. but you know, you know what i think it is? i think it is real simple. it's telling people in the government a chance. you know, you go to work every day and you have this career and

the government. don't make it so difficult that you are afraid that somebody's looking over your shoulder and they are going to give you if you make a mistake. i think it's an attitude. i think it is telling people you were in a career, do it. feel good. raise the bar, take a chance to take a risk. if there is a screwup of course there is going to be a screwup. i'm not going to punish you for that people and going to be more upset if we as a team cannot figure out a better way to do things. that's kind of hard to communicate through a $55,000 a person democracy. we all like to think we are doing great. that's the way we like to think i think that to give be creative and when people are create a cycle this the cabinet meeting think that is a big part of this. it comes with a better program thinking differently, and it distorts the top, that attitude

by also think it is our cabinet heads. the people who were the leaders in the different areas because people wanted a good job. they don't want to be deemed encountered. people want to feel good about what they do and we see it in the area of our disabled children. the program that runs the developmentally disabled. these folks are so excited they are coming together, recombining, saving money and getting better outcomes. you see things like that and believe you can bring even greater and greater results, and frankly it is all about the folks out there. it's just about delivering a better service for children and the poor getting our kids educated. that's what it's all about. is about improving people's lives. and i think could become contagious overtime and then figure out how to give them a little money from time to time. here's 100 bucks take the family

to dinner. if they really didn't give them some money and we are treating the program, too, but even the governor like 15 times you need to be telling us if it works out there. >> you have something? >> i would add briefly we always ask ha kitfield etd and care of the customer or take care of someone who is taking care of the customer. >> two quick examples i would say what these guys are doing if we are on the right path. one comes of something replicating. just on the compensation. the reforms we put in place were necessary because we couldn't do the change of the pay for performance. it was not just about pay. that is a big misnomer. it's all about money and budgets. it's about rewarding and i know

some of the things or just a recognition ceremony that you have of that nature of identifying the excellence and encouraging it for others. some of it is about winning out waste. in some of the 24 slash mexican operations his overtime abuses where somebody would call and be sick in their shift and then work the next shift and get time and a half. that just shows you how things were before. you think somebody would be upset. it is the person you're ready on the rank were upset but not getting that. but the two-thirds who always got passed over for overtime were pleased with the reforms because it gave them a shot to get legitimate access over time as well. the other thing is just about one particular agency and then some similar examples these guys gave, our labor department equivalent is in the department of work force, and under my predecessor, the number one objective was how many more people in my state could they get to sign up for the government unemployment checks?

i remember i came in and we talked about that and i said that is that fundamentally 180-degree difference from what i want you to do. your number one objective in the agency is to figure out how many people you get off of government of unemployment checks and get into a private sector paycheck, and so a lot of those things are about trying to change the mindset and frankly most people that is what even the folks who worked for years that's what they wanted. that's what got in the public service firm in the first place to make it wasn't to put more people on the government role. was to help people. and i think the more that we in power our employees if there is a great public service, some people in the labor union might be surprised to hear me say this but the vast majority of people that work in the states are great public service. they've been beaten down for so many years and feel like they have to do things the government way they lose sight of what they got into in the first place. >> gives a great question.

sorry. >> i have a question that nobody else did. >> this is a central question and i'm glad everybody spoke to it. none of us are smart enough, part of the big business or organization nobody's smart enough to make all of the -- final the opportunities to make all the calls, and it's satisfying when one of our department heads holds of the multimillion-dollar savings or percentage improvement. i get much more excited, and it happens a lot, when some frontline worker finds a way to save a few thousand dollars and they are proud of it and we are proud of them because when you get thousands of people living in the same direction, they make you look smarter than you are. >> what scott talked about, and i did the same thing, we had 558,000 people on on a plan that. today i think we've 374,000. just by changing and saying look, george all this -- we are going to measure you every day to help people get a job we are

going to track how many jobs were filled every day. and so it is almost 200,000 now. >> i can't resist. just one more example. at the turn of the fiscal year we were in stronger shape than we projected a surplus was significantly bigger than had been forecast. the closest associates out of nowhere i declared efficiency dividend, not add due dates but for every state employee up to the managerial level and was a couple% but it was to recognize dole of everybody operating in generally the same direction had produced an extraordinary result i don't mean to belabor the statistics we kept spending below the rate of inflation for

years it is lower in the nominal dollars and we took office seven years ago if you were a state employee 1976 they deserve the credit for that and so when you ask that question i think you are really going to the heart of how we do the other things to get good results for people. >> everybody else is one. but you know now that you wish you had known when you were sworn into office? >> i've never been in office before. the whole process would be nice. all the committees, we still got not everybody done. the politics along the different

members of the house and senate would be nice to the dhaka nice. [inaudible] when people do something like this would you know now that you didn't know when you started. >> i wish the new the 14 senators could shut it down for a few months. nobody knew that in our state before, but seriously i think john and i would have a similar issue but looking back in time the lesson we've learned in the states in particular was be in the position on every major policy made that you have to have not just a strategy for how to get it done on the legislature but you have to build your case publicly. if i look back in time and say i had done what i did i would have done it, but i would have said january and february i would

have literally had a media campaign to go out and run ads and told the people in my state like the example i just gave should somebody in the state government be able to get over time when the call in sick and what you to get over time. should somebody get paid an extra $8,000 a month because they carry a pager that it's in their collective bargaining? shul debose driver in the city of madison because of overtime mechem hundred $50,000 a year should the teacher of the year in the city in milwaukee be laid off the next week because she was the last one hired and the first one of the door when there was a lay off if people knew that up front they would say there's a problem. you have to fix that. there's a problem. i unfortunately like maybe a few of us can up with this mind set like you have is a business owner that says you're a problem commager's a solution, just fix

it. my wife sometimes i spent too much time fixing things and don't explain. i decided there was a lesson learned. it would have been nice to see you can fix it but you have to explain what you are fixing first read >> let me talk about an issue that really runs itself to that and that is the issue of education. we created 60,000 scholarships. we had 15. we were going to 30 than 60 and taking the lid off the charter schools and doing the teachers evaluations. one of them is that we are falling farther and farther behind other countries in terms of education achievement. i'm sure you'll get companies to lynndie that you can't find the kind of mechanical and electrical, the whole engineering and mathematics, science fields we are not getting enough of our own

citizens trained and there is other countries beginning to laugh. i love the fact people come here to get educated but these to stay but now they are going home i'm not convinced that the public understands the situation on education. i think it is sort of like, chris. i hate congress but i love my congressman. it's like a public education isn't working but my kid's school is doing great. it is a painful thing for a mom or dad to have to recognize exactly how their school is doing. and once you do that, then once you can get people to open their eyes to it you can get the kind of fundamental reform where you would need teachers and the community and the administrators all working together. i'm very excited about the potential that is going to come out of cleveland for example because the community leaders are beginning to recognize the fundamental change necessary

coming and if they come with a kind of bold idea but i hope they will which they bring to me rather than from me to them, we may have a chance to set an urban model that might work. education, when i say fundamental reform, i just think we need to start getting our children to realize the passion even in the third and fourth grade and start to building and building and building and connecting them with real life jobs and make education something that provides them with the skills that meets their passion that gives them a career. but this requires flexible education system, more dollars in the classroom. you know, a teacher's evaluation in a fair way. it's so massive that if you cannot convince the country that we have a problem here, then you were just going to have people fighting. i tell you it is worth of the fight. it is about the future of the country economically. we keep getting laughed. we are not going to make it and

i don't want the google and paid health and yahoo! it all these great companies in the discovery this is something that we all have to work on in the democratic colleagues that you have to strip the politics out of this and do it fair and effective drugs and again the last three minutes we have time for one more. >> i just want to follow up with what john said because we spend enough time this year studying education in a lot of different countries and what's happening here in the country and one common denominator that we have found is most nations who have a solid educational system insist on the teachers having content

knowledge of the subjects they teach. and you're in the united states we have courses called educational courses. you can become a teacher by studying methods, and i think that if you really study it that's where we are really falling behind. john hit upon it is occupational opportunities at a much under age. the kids need to have come to see what is available to them so they can satisfy the passion. >> you can no longer get a teaching license with an education major. and education minor, but would come from i'm going to say 36 hours, the requirement of the methods courses, and you know, on, fi revish if you can teach

math you have to know some math. but absolutely. i will just say that one of the things i wish i had known a lot more about is - and education. the schools have, as we know them, are not -- they are not contributing to the solution. somebody must have something to say about that. go ahead. >> obviously we could talk for another hour on this, but one, we saw this first hand, one of the areas that we honed in on early was reading. and in the elementary schools because statistically kids not reading of a third grade level and third grade, they move on. the odds are significantly higher they are going to drop out of school. they are not going to be in schools and high school and there will be a problem in the areas on the road. we adopted in the rebuilt initiative that similar to what was done here in florida years ago and had great success with

it and a good chunk of its. we brought in a very diverse group of teachers come educators, higher it educates the the karadzic kits come in you name it, and one of the things that was fairly consistent with that even among the teachers, they felt there was not enough proper preparation in the university systems in college for reading. the skills needed for the teachers to be prepared for the reading. so we put a tremendous emphasis on that and we got an initiative that works on that. i think the and social for kids who cannot read, we are not just targeted for the elementary school there is a spectrum that every kid that comes out of an elementary school was going to be reading at grade level by time they get out. and the same way we are doing this, again very similar what jeb has done we call this the assessment system where we have a comprehensive assessment of what only of the skill levels but the growth in the combined

factors that gives them a grade. we hear from our employers all the time and we are sure everyone else does, you mentioned this earlier, i'm cheryl full-time employers say i got 19% of my work force in the economy manufacturing. manufacturers tell me repeatedly on got jobs. i don't have enough people to kill them and the skills to meet those jobs and increasingly this high skilled wilder's and others like that we need to do a better job and are schools and others telling our kids while we want a lot of for your college graduates that's great. we need more. we also have a lot of kids who can get a great career and a great salary by working in the skilled trades and we have to do a better job of selling that. spec we have one minute and 22 seconds. we think everyone for their

attendance and the most of the same reaction i do. it's not a group of all stars or what? [applause] if investment is not landing in your marketplace then its landing somewhere else. so capital was a power you have to argue and it willfully wherever it proceeds will be addressed in the marketplace and if it isn't landed in the marketplace is going somewhere else ..