transparency. now, thanks to the leadership of all four caucuses, the general assembly has made significant progress over the last three years in making the legislative branch more transparent. legislative committees are now subject to open meeting requirements. last year, our budget was completed and posted online, well before june 30. now, transparency needs to extend to the way the lobbyists do business here at legislative hall. which is why my administration will team up with president pro tem deluca and speaker gilligan and blevins and schwarzkopf to provide some common sense measures we hope you'll support. citizens deserve to know who is lobbying and what they're lobbying for. we will make it soon with the

new online reporting tool, where citizens can see by piece of legislation which lobbyists are advocating for their clients. and we have been successful in pulling together in tough times in no small part because of faith and the responsiveness of delaware government. the trust of people and their state government should not be undermined by a perception that lobbyists have hidden access here in dover. now, governing responsibly means governing efficiently and working closely under the leadership of representative williams. and senator mcdowell. we have eliminated more than 1,000 positions in the executive branch. we slashed our vehicle fleet. we renegotiated our lease space to save millions. we stopped unnecessary printing. last year, we confronted the

unsustainable long term costs with our state employee and pension and healthcare plans with the prospect of the looming costs gave rise to shrill rhetoric and pitched battles in other states, but here we worked together, my administration, representatives from both parties and both chambers, the leadership of major public education unions, and we achieved results. a package of reforms that will save the taxpayers more than $480 million over the next 15 years. now, our search for greater efficiency continues with an extensive examination of the criminal justice system. and under the leadership of lieutenant governor den, and with the participation of

attorney general biden and law enforcement and the judiciary, we're conducting a thorough review to figure out how we can get the most for the taxpayer dollars that we spend on public safety. we look forward to receiving the recommendations of the justice reinvestment initiative task force later this spring and to working with you to implement those reforms that can have the most positive impact. now, there's one cost driver that looms above all others. and will swamp all of the savings we achieve elsewhere if not addressed. it's the cost of healthcare. last year, we increased spending on medicaid by $56 million. my budget will recommend an additional $21.7 million increase for next year. over the last ten years this program alone has grown 127% to

the point where federal and state spending together exceed $1.2 billion each year. the total commitment of taxpayer dollars on healthcare is staggering. yet, the expectation is that year after year will continue to pay more for health care, whether we receive quality results or not. the incentives that we have in place in our healthcare system will reward neither efficiency, nor quality. these incentives encourage more services and tests, not better results. we've got a system that doesn't encourage healthy behavior in patients and doesn't discourage unhealthy behavior. in essence, we don't have a healthcare system. we have a sick care system.

now, you know, we're not going to solve the national healthcare debate here in dover. but we can reduce our costs and we can improve quality by focusing on how the state procures healthcare. the idea may sound farfetched, but we've quietly been making progress. we know that seniors requiring long-term care often prefer to stay in their homes and so long as they get the care at home that they need, the results are often better and less costly. starting april 1, we will replace our traditional reliance on institutional care for seniors with the strong emphasis on community living. this will improve care and save money and i want to thank secreta secretary landgreb and her staff for making progress on this very important issue.

our housing authority, our department of health and social services, our kids department are using the same approach to improve the quality and reduce the cost of the care that we provide to those who have traditionally been cared for in our state hospital. and to young people aging out of foster care. young people like mindy and matt stephenson and nicole byers. and they join us here today because when it comes to issues affecting the teenagers who age out of foster care we will make no decisions about them without them.

so these three agencies that are partnering to provide housing and the support of wrap around social services, so these individuals can achieve independence and we will propose to expand this initiative. now, the use of technology in healthcare is critical to improve quality and reduce costs. when you go to the doctor or the hospital in delaware today, you may find your doctor can access recent lab work and pathology reports instantaneously. and soon your doctor may be able to pull up your prescriptions and your x-rays and your mris. this allows your doctor to make quicker and better medical judgments and makes it less likely that your doctor will order unnecessary tests. in this use of information technology to provide better,

less costly care is increasingly a reality. now, the next step to leveraged technology is to have a claims and cost day databases by. the key to improving performance is toing aggregate and then anae the data. this will allow us to figure out why some providers get better results and why some create more costs without better results to show for it. we'll be in a position to reward what works and to change what doesn't. while this innovative technology is important, delaware's biggest purchaser of healthcare, the state, needs to insist on incentives for providers that are aligned to improve quality and discourage waste. taken together, our medicaid population and our state

employees and retirees represent nearly 40% of the health insurance market here. accounting for a total of $1.7 billion of taxpayer expenditures. we look forward to working with the provider community to get these incentives right. because the incentives that work today are the wrong ones and we're pleased that the delaware medical society are already active on this issue and have agreed to work with us. now, providers are not the only ones who have roles to play here. moving from a sick care system to a health care system requires the people that we ensure to take responsibility for making healthy choices. we need to encourage them in these choices.

for their own sake. and for the sake of all of us who end up absorbing higher healthcare costs in the form of higher premiums and higher taxes. about two years ago, i created the governor's council on health promotion and disease prevention. they have done some terrific work. as has the sussex outdoors initiative. and some of our institutions of higher education are also working to provide an incentive to their employees to take better care of themselves. we will build on much of this work. and within state government, it's time to make all of our campuses in their entirety smoke free. but otherwise, we are facilitating behavior that's not only harmful to those who engage in it, but that we know with certainty will heavily burden

future generations of taxpayers. turning around this cost curve will not be easy and it will take time, but it's work to which we must commit urgently and earnestly. if we are to put ourselves on a sustainable financial course and retain the freedom that we all want to invest in our children and in our future. this is delaware's time to lead. creating more and better jobs. improving our quality of life. providing the best schools and learning opportunities for our children. getting the most out of each tax dollar. strengthening the trust of our people and their government. these are challenges even in ordinary times. we don't live in ordinary times. change and challenge accompany

us each day. alan's family foods is no longer selling chickens across our region. now it's part of hiram, selling delaware poultry into korea and across asia. on the former chrysler site, delawareans will be building bloom energy servers to provide clean energy where they once built suvs and tanks. we can shrink from these challenges or we can do as a business destined for industry leadership would do. and see in this moment an opportunity to change the game in our favor. the economic ground is shifting under everyone's feet. others are finding it difficult to adapt. they're pointing fingers rather than pulling together. they're holding each other back rather than lifting each other up.

ore history and our culture demonstrate that we do better than that in delaware. but to take advantage of this moment and build a lasting, competitive edge for our state and its people, we've got to do more than simply work with rather than against each other. together, we must act with confidence and imagination. we can't settle for an economy that's depends upon a handful of employers. we can't settle for schools that are just better funded versions of the schools that we remember from 20 years ago. we'll help the schools that will prepare our children for the jobs 20 years from now. we can't settle for the sick

care system we inherited from our parents. we'll create a healthcare system that pays for performance and delivers quality care at a price that families and taxpayers can afford. i thank each of you, the people of delaware, and the state employees who served them, for your support over these past three difficult years. working together, we have kept delaware moving forward. and now it's time that we forge ahead. with our own hard work as elected leaders, guided by sound judgments and god's blessings, we can secure a better future for our citizens. we can win in the turns. this is our time. to look ahead, to leap ahead, to lead. thank you.

thank you.

after 200 years, many of us take those privileges for granted. >> c-span.org, the contenders. we go to indiana where mitch daniels gave his final state of the state address. he talked about education, infrastructure spending and the union rights. his remarks are about 30 minutes.

>> thank you.

thank you very much. members of the general assembly, honored guest, fellow citizens, for an eighth time and the final time, you afford me the unrivaled privilege of this podium as it's my last such chance to express my appreciation for the public service you each perform and the hoosiers for hiring me twice so i could try to perform my own. i'll start with the heart felt thank you. but the time for reminiscing will come later. much later. tonight, and all nights in today's indiana must be about

the future. where we are and where we're going. a reporter asked recently, what keeps you up at night? i replied, i generally sleep well, but if i ever do have trouble, i don't have to count sheep. i count all the states i'm glad i'm not the governor of. by the time i first took office, a radio caller expressed a fairly common sentiment. i like what you say what you stand for, but republicans, democrats, nothing ever changes. nothing's ever different. i recall responding, sir, i'm careful not to promise, what i'm not sure can be delivered but i'll promise you one thing. in a few years you place did agree with the decisions we made or actions we have taken, but you will not think nothing's different. i'm pretty sure that good man would agree tonight that things are very different in indiana now.

then we were broke and other states were flush. tonight, while states elsewhere twist in financial agony, indiana has an honestly balanced budget, a strong, protective reserve in our savings account and the first aaa rating, a handful of one of the states left in america. our credit is better, imagine this, than the federal government's. another host of states raised taxes again last year, while hoosiers are taxed at the lowest levels in a long time thanks in

part to the lowest property taxes in the nation. while other state governments stiff their vendors, close parks, delay tax refunds and ignore unacceptably poor service levels, we're setting national standards for efficiency. tonight, hoosiers are served by provably the most productive government workers in america. indiana has the fewest state workers per capita in america and yet, our parks have never been in better shape, your tax refund comes back twice as quickly as it used to and the average customer got in and out of the license branch last month in under 14 minutes.

i'm not the only one to notice. in a national survey last summer, 77% of hoosiers described their state government as efficient. far above most states in the second highest rating in the nation. uniquely in public sector america, indiana now pays state workers on a performance basis so those doing the best job are properly rewarded for their superior efforts. but i know that the reward they value as much as money is simple recognition from the citizens they serve and i hope you'll show them right now that you value them and their hard work as much as i do.

careful stewardship of the taxpayer's dollar and ceaseless efforts are matters of duty and basic good government. but they are not the fundamental goals of public life. they're just means to the real goal. which is to make our state a place of opportunity and upward mobility and a better standard of living. a place where young people and people not so young know that they can start with nothing and make a good life. from our administration's first day, this has been the central objective around which everything else was organized. we have worked relentlessly to move indiana up the list of great places to do business. we set out to build the best sand box in america. a place where men and women of enterprise knew if they risk a buck on their idea or their dream, they would have the best possible chance to get it back with something left over they could use to hire the next hoosier. we have made steady progress, coming from nowhere to the top

tier in every ranking. number six according to the nation's site elections. number six according to ceo magazine. fu number five according to real estate decisionmakers. it was our ironic bad luck to create a on the economic climate just as the nation plunged into its worst modern recession and business investments slowed to a crawl. we became the prettiest girl in school the year they called off the prom. despite these head winds our recently strong state revenues show that something positive is happening to hoosier incomes. in 2010, the most recent data we have, indiana incomes grew at the eighth fastest rate in the country. here's another encouraging sign. more people are moving in to indiana than moving out.

our population is growing at the fastest rate from iowa to maine. maybe best of all, thousands of college graduates moved into our state last year more than moved out. there was no better indicator of economic promise in today's world than success at attracting top talent and we are. we are not where we want to be. nowhere close. but with a welcoming business climate, enormous investments in new public infrastructure and a stable fiscal picture, we are poised for more progress and better days. beyond the statistics lies a basic difference in the indiana of today. we are now indisputably seen as a leader. in hundreds of articles about fiscal prudence, economics, transportation, correction, child protection and so on, we

are cited constantly as an example for others to examine. from cleveland, ohio should follow indiana's lead and dive in. from detroit, indiana has many of the answers as seen in indiana, it certainly is possible. from north carolina, fortunately, there's no need to speculate about how a state might proceed. indiana has already done it. it's more than words. we now experience the sincerest flattery all the time. our economic development corporations has been copied by ohio, wisconsin, michigan, and others. our corrections program by oregon, our employer healthcare by oklahoma, missouri and florida. our performance based by wyoming and air quality by kentucky and south carolina. our online university wgu

indiana by texas and by washington. and at every governor's meeting, someone says if only we could pull off a deal half as good as indiana did with its toll road. the latest realm in which indiana is now a leader is perhaps the most important. from coast to coast, others are praising our reforms of public education. one national magazine wrote that indiana has gone from the back waters of education reform in america to the front. the fordham institute said no one has been more successful in providing a comprehensive reform plan for a system that's failing america's children. then this from even further away the daily telegraph of london wrote that in education, quote, england would do well to follow indiana's lead.

the days when education debates started and stopped at dollar signs are over and high time. from president obama down, everyone recognizes that leaders in education are defined not by what they put in, but what they get out. just for the record and despite frequent misrepresentations to the contrary, indiana is a leader in what we put in. with this year's spending increases, plus the additional funds we requested for full day kindergarten, k-12 spending is now 56% of the entire state budget, the highest percentage of any state in the nation. no state anywhere devotes more of its state funds to education. but that's not why others are following indiana. 's