than three million jobs in the last 22 months. consumer confidence is edging up. and signalling continued economic growth. manufacturing employment has grown for the first time since the late 1990s. despite calls from some to let the domestic auto industry fail, we took bold action and actually saad millions of american jobs. our auto industry is back on the upswing making great cars, investing in new factories, creating thousands of new jobs all because we intervened. and while rising health costs have been a drag on our economy, we did take action. we passed the affordable care act. not only does the law give businesses and health care providers new tools to bring costs under control, it will expand health care coverage to 32 million americans. this is an amazing feat.

health care reform is no job destroyer. on the contrary. since at fordable care act was signed into law, we've seen half a million new jobs created in the health care sector. this is a much different story than what our country was facing just a few years ago when our economy was hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month. we all know there is more action that needs to be taken. now is not the time to put on the brakes. we need to work together for fair and sustainable recovery and to rebuild those ladders of opportunity for every american. while today's hearing is timely and appropriate, i fear another year of waisted opportunities is before us. i take this because this committee held a similar hearing on the economy and job creation. during that hearing, the governor and economists across

the political spectrum agree that rebuilding roads, schools, and bridges has significant benefits for jobs and for building the economy. but in the year that's followed the house failed to act on jobs. instead of a jobs agenda, all we saw was political brinksmanship. that kind of politics that hurts building jobs has shut down the faa. putting thousands of workers out of work, jeopardizing thousands of construction workers jobs in the process. the result of our nation's credit being downgraded for the first time in our history. it has jeopardized americans unemployment insurance. it threatened the extension of payroll tax cuts. and now we're seeing a highway bill from house republicans that falls substantially short of what our nation needs.

jobs create ready jobs that can be created here in the united states. again, mr. chairman, this hearing comes at an opportune time. i urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to allow another year to go by without action. i read the comments that speaker boehner was to use to putted obama administration on trial. i hope speaker boehner's comments have a commitment, rather, to oversight and that we will be able to work together in an effort to grow our economy and to create new jobs. the american people aren't interested in another year of politics and political fighting and congressional inaction on jobs. there is nothing wrong with political differences and policy differents. sometimes we disagree with these and we agree on the other side of the aisle in cases.

but sometimes we don't agree. that's the nature of the democracy. that's why we have different political parties. but during tough times, we should at least try to work together to develop consensus, not roadblocks, and that's the case at all levels of government. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. pursuant to committee rule 7-c, all committee members will be permitted to submit written statements into the permanent hearing record. the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the record and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. for introductions of our first distinguished panel of witnesses, i yield to mr. wallburg of michigan to introduce our first witness. >> thank you, mr. chairman. on november 2nd, 2010, michiganians elected rick

snyder, a successful businessman with no experience in politics. i think that's changed. to lead the state as governor through his relentless positive action and focus on accomplishing what he pledged to do. governor snyder has delivered. during his first year in office, he worked with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to eliminate the state's $1.5 billion budget deficit and create a $460 million surplus. as a true believer in the power of the private sector, uniting, not dividing all sectors, he's proven his commitment to michigan's future through his support of education and real world training for job seekers and removing unnecessary government-made hurdles. these types of bold actions were direly needed in michigan and governor snyder, doing what he

promised, an usual tact has acted quickly to put our state back on the path to prosperity. and for that, i say thank you. on a more personal level, by the age of 23, this businessman turned politician earned his undergraduate degree, mba, and law degree from the university of michigan, go blue. after spending time teaching, working as a tax accountant, governor snyder led a struggling economy called gateway, led them to grow from just over 700 employees struggling with great challenges to a fortune 500 company with more than 10,000 employees. as a fellow michiganian, i look forward to working with governor snyder in 2012 as we help to grow michigan's economy. and may i add, it's been a pleasure to watch a governor who doesn't believe that it can't be done and when it's the right thing to do. and through relentless effort, relentless positive action, he's been able to make unbelievers

believers and the possibility as well as the ultimate opportunity of michigan will he gaining the primacies as a manufacturing state, as a technology state, as an education state, and the best state in the world to live and do business. we welcome you, governor snyder. >> thank you, mr. wallberg. you know, as we do a lot of that go blue, go red -- yeah. i don't know, maybe it's the education committee. we can't stop ourselves. it's my pleasure to introduce our secretary witness, co-panelist rick snyder. he was sworn into office as the 48th governor -- i'm sorry. we just introduced that guy. >> i think i did that well, didn't i, chairman? >> actually, you did it extremely well. i'm not sure about the go blue thing. but very, very well. governor dan maloy, let's get the right guy, took office as the 88th governor of connecticut

on january 5th, 2011. he worked as a prosecutor in brooklyn, new york. serving four years as assistant district attorney in 1995 governor maloy was elected and served 14 years as mayor of stanford, connecticut. now that was a real job. no question about it. governor maloy received his undergraduate and law degrees from boston college. welcome to you both. before i recognize each of you to provide your testimony, let me, once again, briefly explain our lighting system. you will each have five minutes to present your testimony. if you go over, i will not be gaveling you down. if i start to get nerve yut up here, you'll hear a gentle tapping. when you begin, the light in front of you will turn green. when one minute is left, the light will turn yellow. when your time has expired, light will turn red. after everyone has testified, we here, members will each have five minutes to have questions and answers. so at this time we will start

with governor snyder. governor, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's an honor to be here. thank you for the invitation. i want to thank you for your fine representation of our state along with representative killedy. i'm here to raemy talk about the topic that's most important in our state. i appreciate the opportunity to share that with you when is more and better jobs. if you look where michigan came from? we led the nation in unemployment. our unemployment rate was over 14%. i'm proud to say that in december this last year it was 9.3%. but as already been commented, that's not good enough. the goal is more and better jobs. the opportunity today, the way i view it, is is not to come and criticize the federal government and talk about how great michigan is but to come in interest of partnership. we have a philosophy in michigan as the represent wallberg said of lentless positive action which means no plame, no credit, find common ground, solve a problem and do it in a

relentless fashion. and that's been successful. so i want to compliment the federal government on a couple programs we partnered together on, including the state's small business credit initiative. it's been a very successful program and also good work going on with the export-import bank to do credit for small business. in term of things in michigan that we moved forward with, because the way i view more and better jobs, the role of government is not to create jobs, but to create an environment where the private sector can be successful and employ people. and so we work hard to create the bestive and that began with a balanced budget. where we started paying down long term lie aabilitieliabilit. and i encourage congress and the federal government to look at ways to deal with the deficit and the debt elimination that is required. that would be one of the greatest things that we could do for our employers in michigan and the country. we did tax reform. we eliminated tax credits. we made a simple, fair and efficient tax system.

we're doing regulatory reform. we've done unemployment insurance reform, workers comp reform, infrastructure reform as we speak and the topic of speak nature i'd like to cover is talent. the reason i use the word talent instead of workforce is while i believe workforce development is very important, it's inadequate as a solution to deal with unemployment. workforce tends to deal with creating opportunities and giving people skills. that's simply not good enough. the talent of topic is what really matters. there are three c s in my view, creating, collaboration and connecting. we need to do well on all three of those if we're to do our jobs effectively. in terms of creatingal tae atal that, is the topic again, giving people skills and our he heduca system which we call p-20. it is about creating an integrated environment to give the best skills possible to most

talented people in the world, michiganianers and americans. with respect to that though, as i said, we need to do more. so we created a number of programs on collaborating. we created programs such as pure michigan talent connect. pure michigan talent connect is a program where we created a portal for our employers to post the jobs they have now and for the future what skills they need and how to partner together. it's also about skill trades. we've had union involvement of both the carpenters and the operating engineers partner with us on these programs. so those are all very good. so if you go down the list, the one of critical nature that is overlooked too often is connecting. i encourage you to go to mi talent.org, a portal we launched last fall which is literally to say it's not about jobs being open, it's about career planning. we have 70,000 open jobs in michigan today. we could drop our unemployment rate by 2% by filling those

jobs. it was not readily available for our citizens in helping them plan a career. there are two specific items i mentioned to your committee for your contraction, one about looking at the new grants. too often you hear of a block grant. i recommend a middle ground. we want to be held accountable. we want metrics and measures to say we're succeeding. the last thing i would mention as a critical issue that would help immediately which is on the immigration front. immigration is a very difficult issue. i would encourage consideration of a very narrow opportunity which is to create a stem green card for advanced degree people with dock dock tratss and such, i did start-up companies.

we're educating the people and telling them to loaf our country. they are job creators and there is broad based success there. >> i hope you look at them very seriously. i appreciate the opportunity to share what we're doing in michigan. we are helping reinvent our state. it is about more and bore jobs. we want to have success with you. >> thank you very much, governor. governor maloy? >> chairman klein, representative payne and others, thank you for inviting me to testify today. i took office last january, connecticut had the largest per capita deficit of any state in the nation and we had no job growth for 22 years. this is an awful lot of distinction. over the last 13 months we made tough decisions to get our fiscal house in order. we passed a budget that bridged 35i plt $5 billion deficit.

it xeped an accounting principles gap. we negotiated an agreement that will save taxpayers $21.5 billion over the next 20 years. and we cut spending by $1.7 billion and we raised revenue. just last week, we announced a commitment to increase the size of our pension payments and move that will avoid a balloon payment of $1.5 billion in just 20 years and one that will save taxpayers nearly 6 dls billion over the next 20 years. we set our state on a road to recovery. while we have a long way to go, we're seeing signs of improvement. our unemployment rate has fallen to 8.2%, are the lowest point in 2 1/2 years and by over 1% during the last year. during the last year we also experienced job growth, 9,000 new jobs for the first time since 2008. in connecticut, as is the case across the nation, the issue obviously remains job creation. one of the first actions we took on the jobs front was an initiative called first five.

first five is designed to attract large scale business development projects by augmenting the best incentive and tax credit programs for the first five companies to create 200 jobs within two years or invest 25 dlsh million and create 200 jobs over the next five years. we convened a special session on jobs. we tass passed a bipartisan bill with only one negative vote in eep of the jam berz. our job, though, includes a small business express program where we're investing $50 million per year to help connecticut's small business access much needed capital. the investment is already paying off. the first company to access the credit is planning to double its workforce as a result of the funding. we enacted a job expansion tax credit program offering a $500 tax credit for employers for each new employee or new hires if that employee is disabled, unemployed or a veteran.

i must say i'm particularly concerned about helping our returning veterans and disabled veterans find jobs upon their return from service. we expanded the capacity of our manufacturing decr investment program. when it comes to job creation, we didn't stop there. early on a announced a plan to develop connecticut's version of a research triangle focused on bioscience. this research triangle is coming to life more quickly than any of us thought possible. shortly after i had bioscience connecticut initiative was announced, we began to have conversation with jackson laboratories and world renowned maine based research institute that does pioneering work in the field of personalized mention. there is a new $1.1 billion personalized medical

prosecretary on the campus of the university of connecticut health center. the jackson laboratory for genomic makeups. permanent jobs associated with the facility are projected to total more than 6,800 jobs over 20 years including thousands of new construction jobs. during the coming 2010 legislative session, we'll tackle the next component of our strategy, education reform. in the next few days, i will announce a set of president obama posae a proposals in the t of this debate. everything is on the table. if our kids are going to compete in the 21st century marketplace, we can't put these reforms off any longer. i'm encouraged and optimistic about the progress we've made in connecticut and the prospect for future growth. we still have much work to do and i will be tireless in producing strategies while being responsible manager of the

state's budget. chairman klein, thank you very much, to the committee members and yourself for allowing me to testify. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much, governor. both governors. we really do appreciate your time and insight. you share a xbifrpgstion that a lot of people wouldn't want to share. because we have people coming and going, i'm going to defer my question period. i understand mrs. fox agreed to defer hers for a few minutes. and so i will recognize mr. wallberg for questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and had i been given the opportunity to confer, i would have conferred. i appreciate the opportunity. governor snyder, again, thank you for being here. i appreciate your opening comments as you talked about developing employment talent, the three cs, having a b-12

education system. we're certainly concerned with. and from my perspective, i woul much rather see states embodying all these concepts and moving the knowledge and talent and workforce forward as opposed to the federal government so involved. so let me ask you if you could develop even further your ideas as well as concerns along the line of what federal education regulations are making it harder for you to accomplish your goals in michigan and in what ways on the positive side can we be of greater support, encouragement, aid and comfort to you as a state executive and with the state legislature moving that whole idea of developing a workforce that is trained and ready and expanding? >> i appreciate your question, representative walberg. it's a real challenge that there are many federal programs.

there are dozens of federal programs. we actually spend a lot of time on administration, overhead, additional costs rather than actually helping people. in too many cases we're giving people skills and training where there may not even be employment opportunities. and so this is where the connecting part comes in, as i mentioned. we have 70,000 open jobs in michigan. we have a lot of people that want to find a job. but when that mechanism didn't previously exist, and secondly, the piece of that is, is we should never tell people what they have to study, but shouldn't we create a path where they can find success by having good information? so on this website, for example, we have a career skill matchmaker and we have a career investment calculator so people can literally look at different careers to see what they should go into because there's opportunities and jobs. again, if you were to redo programs instead of making them prescriptive, but have programs that say we're going to hold you accountable for connecting with

jobs, if you were going to hold us accountable to, say, how many employers are we working with and developing joint programs with, those are all great metrics. then just give us the flexibility to deliver on that and partner with you on doing that. >> in my role as chairman of the workforce protections, a subcommittee that we provide oversight to various aspects of the department of labor, one of those primary program with department of labor is osha. in the course of some of our hearings, we have found out that many states have, like michigan, miosha, michigan osha, give the primary responsibility for regulating the onsight workforce protection programs, working with -- working with job providers, employers. in my travels around the districts, i've talked with many employers who are finding great benefit, great help, great partnership with miosha. as inspectors work with them, in

the past have been much more partnering with them as opposed to citing them and fining them. in recent days we've been hearing an uptick specifically coming from osha encouraging miosha to be more involved with citing and fining. and hearing the concept of regulation through shaming, as it were. if that's been noticed by you, how are you continuing to focus the real partnership that a state regulator can be in helping employers and employees in making sure that while we have a safe workplace, we have a workplace to come back to the second day? >> excellent question. what i would say is this is something that i found even at the state government. because miosha is preferred over osha in michigan by far in terms of that. but that was not good enough. that there was too much of a culture even out of lansing. most employers don't want to have someone show up and say, i'm from washington, i'm from lansing and i'm here to help. as a prakt couple, what we're trying to do now is create an

environment where the goal of our people is to perform their fiduciary duty and to do that responsibly. not to punish them but to have them succeed. it's a training we're doing with our miosha and state employees, to empower them more. they feel they're a value added contributor and partnership with their employers and helping average businesses to succeed. the average person is an honest person. there are some bad people out there and we should really go after them. instead of trying to create barriers let's help them solve their problem. one program people might want to look at is something we did in michigan in the agriculture section. it's calmed maep, michigan agriculture environmental insurance program. it's to help farmers get precertified. they go to a certification program and get a credential to say this means you're doing essentially best practice. if you have an issue, before we come penalize you we're going to

review your records on how we can help you be successful before they have to worry about being punished because they've made a good investment in being smart and thoughtful. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. payne? >> let me thank you for your very interesting testimony. let me ask both of you this question. we all know too well that many public schools and community colleges across the country are in desperate need of repairs. and the folks who can make those repairs are ready, willing and able to work. very anxious. every dpovgovernor knows the challenge is, and we do, too, in congress, is paying for it. the americans job act directly addressed this need with a common sense approach to both fix schools and put folks back to work. it's a win/win across the board. specifically under the aja the president seeks to invest $25 billion in school infrastructure that will modernize at least

35,000 schools, putting thousands of unemployed americans back to work. both michigan and connecticut stand to benefit from this proposal and i'm confident that both of you support it. that's going to be my question. under aja, governor snyder, michigan will receive nearly $1 billion for school repairs and with support as many as 12,000 new jobs in your state. governor malloy, under the aja, connecticut stands to receive nearly $200 million in funding for school infrastructure and will support as many as 2,400 jobs in connecticut. i just wonder if, starting with you, governor snyder, do you support this act and governor malloy and, perhaps, why? >> thank you for that question. what i would say is a couple things. one is, there are infrastructure requirements where we do need to invest. our schools, our colleges. we have many other places with our communities where they need to invest.

a couple things that are typically missing are the right metrics and, again, measures. you have to forgive me. i'm an old accountant. so i like to measure things in terms of knowing what we're doing. one of the challenges is, is we've had numerous cases in the past where people would build capital facilities without having the operating sources to actually use those facilities or apply them. so in many respects we need to be much more thoughtful about making sure what are the highest and best asset allocations as opposed to simply making sure we're doing projects? and that they're going to the jurisdictions that can need them most. we have certain school districts that would take part potentially in these programs that really don't need those resources, that have great facilities and others that are crumbling. how can we make sure they're there, and then how do we make sure follow-up funds for maintenance, all those things are in place? one of the great things i found in our budget that has been overlooked is proper maintenance. for even state facilities from prior years. and we're getting caught up on that.

>> let me be clear. i'd be more than happy to take $200 million and i'll take part of the governor's billion dollars if he doesn't want to use it. i constantly hear from the businessmen in my state when they travel around the rest of the world how great other countries' infrastructure is. in specific reference many times made to china as well as certain european countries. there is a reality about the united states that we have failed to invest properly in the maintenance of our infrastructure but also building new infrastructure. we are suffering from a 25% unemployment rate in some of the building trades. any program that would allow us to put contractors and construction workers back to work would be a good program on its face. but the idea of tying that to improving our educational system is an exemplary idea. >> thank you. similar question. the american society of civil engineers awarded the united states a deed. and the condition of our

infrastructure as you mentioned. in 2009 asce estimated the u.s. must spend $2.2 trillion over five years to meet the country's most basic infrastructure needs. not to catch up. just the basic needs. by conservative estimates, every $1 billion in public infrastructure investment creates 23,000 well paying jobs. the congressional budget office estimates that every dollar of infrastructure spending generates on average a $1.60 increase in our overall gdp. critical transportation and energy projects have even larger multiplier effects. given this, i would like to ask you both, how are you partnering with the federal government and leveraging existing public investment and transportation to upgrade roads, rail, ports and reinvest in the overall infrastructure in your state? >> we do need to invest more in infrastructu