the cliff. the recession brought on by wall street greed was long and deep. almost immediately 4 million jobs were lost. another 4 million were lost before things started to turn around. it took strong and decisive action by the last congress, working with the obama administration, to pull our country back from the abyss. the action made a real difference. the private sector has created more than 3 million jobs in the last 22 months. consumer confidence is edging upd continued economic growth. manuur time since the late 1990s. despite calls from some to let the domestic auto industry fail, we took bold action and actually saved millions american jobs. our auto industry is back on the upswing, making great cars, investing in new factories, job

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 expand health care coverage to 32 million americans. this is an amazing feat. and health care reform is no job destroyer. on the contrary, since the affordable care act was signed into law we've seennew bs creat health care sector. this is a much different story than what our country was facing just a few years ago when our economy was hemorrhg and so our nation's economy is headed in the right direction. but of course we all know that is not the time to put on eds

the brakes. we need to work together for a faainable recovery and to rebuild those ladders of opportunity for every american. while today's hearing is timely and appropriate, i fear another year of wasted opportunities is before us i say this because little more than a year agosimig on the economy and job creation. during that hearing, a er econo roads, schools and bridges have significant benefits for jobs and for building the economy. but in the years that followed the house failed to act on jobs. instead of a jobs agenda last year, all we saw was political brinksmanship, the kind of politics that hurts building jobs. shut down the faa, putting thousands of workers out of

work. jeopardizing thousands of construction workers' jobs in the process. it resulted in our nation's credit being downgraded for the first time in our history. it has jeopardized americans' unemployment insurance. it has 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. our roads and our bridges are crumbling. it does not even contain a by america provision so that jobs created are jobs that can be created here in the united states. again, mr. chairman, this hearing comes at an opportune time. i hope it will help us turn the corner. i urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to allow another year to go by without action. i've read the comments speaker boehner wants to use this year to put the obama administration

on trial. i hope speaker boehner's comments has 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 infighting and congressional inaction on jobs. there's nothing wrong with political differences and policy differences. sometimes we agree 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 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'll yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. pursuant to committee rule 7-c, all committee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the

permanent hearing record. without objection, 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. wallberg of michigan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. on november 2nd, 2010, i think that's changed, to lead the state as governor. through his relentless positive action and focus on accompli 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 state's $1.5 billion budget deficit and create a $460

million surplus and climbing. as a true believer in the power of the private sector uniting, not dividing all sectors, he's proved 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 unusual 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 urn earned his undergraduate degree, law degree and mba from the university of michigan. go blue. governor snyder led a struggling company 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, i look forward to working with governor snyder as we grow michigan's economy. 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. through relentless effort and relentless positive action he's been able to make unbelievers believers in the possibility as well as the ultimate opportunity of michigan, remaining its primacy 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. walberg. you notice we do a lot of that go blue, go red, i don't know,

maybe it's the education committee, we can't stop ourselves. it's my pleasure now to introduce our second witness, co-panelist, governor rick snyder. he was sworn into office as the 48th govern -- 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 dannel malloy took office as the 88th governor of connecticut 2011. prior to that, he worked as a prosecutor in brooklyn, new york, serving four years as assistant district attorney. in 1995 governor malloy served as mayor of stamford, connecticut. 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 nervous 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 is expired, the light will turn red. after everyone has testified, we here, members, will each have five minutes to have -- to ask questions and have them answered from the panel. 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 and i want to thank representative walberg for his fine representation of our state. i'm here to really talk about the topic that's most important in our state, and i appreciate the opportunity to share that with you, which is more and better jobs. if you look at where michigan's come from, we led the nation in unemployment. if you go to september 2009,

unemployment 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. and the opportunity today, the way i view it is, not to come and criticize the federal government and talk about how great michigan is, but to come in the interest of partnership. we have a philosophy in michigan as the representative said of relentless positive action, which means no blame, 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've 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 terms of things in michigan that we've moved forward with, because the way i view more and better jobs, the role of government is not to create jobs but create an environment where

the private sector can be successful and employ people. so we've worked hard to create the best environment and that began with having a balanced budget where we started paying down long-term liabilities and balance sheet requirements. i urge the government to look at ways to deal with the deficit and debt elimination required. that would be one of the greatest things we could do for employers in michigan and the country. m. eliminated tax credits, we're we've done unemployment reinform, wormer's comp reform, infrastructure reform as we speak, and the topic of specific nature is talent. and the reason i use the word talent instead of workforce, while i believe work force development is very important, it's inadequate as a solution to deal with unemployment. workforce tends to deal with giving people skills. that's simply not good enough. the talent of topic is what

really matters and there are three cs in my view. there's first 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 creating talent, that's the topic of again, traditional workforce development, giving people skills and our education system which we don't call k-12, we call p-20, prenatal through life-long learning. giving the best skills possible to the most talented people in the world, americans. with respect to that, though, as i said, we need to do more. so we've created a number of programs on collaborating. we've created programs such as pure michigan talent connecticut and pure michigan business connect. a program where we created a portal for 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 skilled trades.

we've had union involvement of both the carpenters and operating engineers partner with us on these programs. so those are all very good. so if you go down the list the one overlooked too often is connecting. i encourage you to go to the 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 unemployment by almost 2% by filling those jobs, and that was not something readily available to our citizens in helping them plan a career. so connecting is critically important. there are two specific items i'd mention to the committee for your consideration. the workforce investment act, about potentially looking at ways to do that. too often you hear the model of federal government of priptive programs. i recommend a middle ground. we want to be held accountable. we want metrics and measures to say we're succeeding, but i ask

that be done in a portfolio-based approach of metrics and measures, not prescriptive programs, nor block grants. the last thing is a critical issue that would help immediately which is on the immigration front. immigration is a very difficult issue but i would encourage consideration of a very narrow opportunity which is to create a stem green card for advanced degree people with doctorates and such in engineering and other fields, if we could have those people available what a difference that would make. i personal experienced this doing i did startup companies. we're educating these people and telling them to leave our country. they're job creators and there's opportunity for success there. with those two specific ideas in mind i hope you look at them very seriously. i appreciate the opportunity to share what we're doing in michigan. we're helping reinvent our state. it is about more and better jobs and we want to be good partners with you in success. >> thank you very much, governor. governor malloy. >> chairman kline, thank you for

inviting me to testify today and to speak about what connecticut is doing to get our economy going. when i took office last january, connecticut had the largest per capita deficit of any state in the nation and we had had no job growth for 22 years, a distinction we shared only with michigan. this is an unwanted distinction, i might add. over the last 13 months we've made tough decisions to get our fiscal house in order. we passed a budget that bridged a $3.5 billion deficit. we implemented a budgeting gap, saving 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 committee to increase pension payments, a move that will avoid a balloon payment in 20 years and one that will save taxpayers nearly $6 billion over the next 20 years. we've set our state on a road to

recovery and while i know we still have a long way to go, we are seeing signs of improvement. our unemployment rate has fallen to 8.2%, the lowest point in 2 1/2 years and by over 1% during the last year. the last -- 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 development projects by augmenting and combining the best tax credit programs for the first five companies to create 200 jobs within two years or invest $25 million and create 200 jobs over the next five years. we convened a special session on jobs, we passed a bipartisan bill with only one negative vote in each of the chambers that will move connecticut forward.

our jobs bill includes a small business express program where we're investing $50 million per year to help connecticut 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 providing a $500 tax credit to employers for each new employee, or $900 for new hires if that employee is disabled, unemployed or a veteran. i'm particularly concerned about helping our returning veterans and especially disabled veterans find jobs upon their return from service. we expanded the capacity of our reinvestment account program allowing small companies to deposit domestic receipts into interest bearing accounts to use for business expenses. but when it comes to job creation we didn't stop there. early on i 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 offer my initiative was announced we began to have conversations with jackson laboratories, a world renowned maine based research institute that does pioneering work in the field of medicine. our bond commission authorized $291 million in state funding for jackson laboratories new $1.1 billion personalized medicine project on the campus of the university of connecticut center in farmington. it will accelerate the development of new medical treatments. 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 2012 legislative session, we'll tackle the next component of our economic development strategy, education reform.

in the next few days i will announce a set of proposals putting my state on the front of the 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 prospects for future growth. with he still have much work to do and i will be tireless in pursuing pro-growth economic strategies while being a responsible manager of the state's budget. chairman kline, thank you very much to the committee members and yourself for allowing me to testify and i look forward to your questions. >> i thank you very much, governors, we appreciate your time and insight. it's fascinating you share a distinction that maybe a lot of people wouldn't want to share, but it looks like you're addressing in exciting ways. because we have people coming and going i'm going to defer my

question period and i understand mrs. fox has agreed to defer hers for a few minutes, so i will recognize mr. walberg for questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and had i been given the opportunity to defer i might have but i appreciate the opportunity to go. governor snyder, again, thank you for being here. i appreciated your opening comments as you talked about developing employment talent, the three cs, having an education system we're certainly concerned with, and from my perspective would 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 work force that is trained and ready and expanding. >> i appreciate your question. it's a real challenge that there are many federal programs. there are dozens of federal programs and we spend a lot of time on administration, overhead, a lot of additional cost rather than actually helping people. and in too many cases, we're giving people skills and training where they're not, there may not even be employment opportunities. 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 one that mechanism didn't previously exist in terms of a role the government can play in terms of a clearinghouse

coordinator, not a money spender. secondly the piece of that 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 say what they should go into because there's opportunity and jobs. so 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're going to hold us accountable to say how many employers are we working with and developing joint programs with, those are all great metrics, and then just give ug the flexibility to deliver on that and partner with you on doing that. >> in my role as chairman of the workforce protections subcommittee, weroght various the department of labor. one of those primary program with the department of labor is osha. in the course of some of our

hearings, we have found out that many states have, like michigan, my osha, michigan osha, that is give the primary responsibility for regulating the on-sight workforce protection programs, 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, . in recent days we've been hearing an uptick specifically coming from osha encouraging miosha to be more involved with citing and fining. 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. there was too much of a culture, even out of lansing. most employers don't want someone to say i'm from washington or i'm here from lancing and i'm here to happen. what we're trying to do now is create an environment where the goal of our people is to perform their fiduciary duty and do that responsibly but not to punish people, it's to have people succeed. so the philosophy that we're doing training with all our work force people, all the miosha and all state employees is to empower them more, where they feel they're a value-added contributor in partnership with their employers and helping most employers to succeed. the average business person is a

good honest people. there are some bad people and we should really go after them. but instead of creating barriers, let's help them solve their problem. one thing we did in the agricultural sector called the michigan agricultural environmental insurance program which was to help farmers get precertified. they go through a certification program and get a credential to say this means you're doing essentially best practice. and if you have an issue before we can penalize you we're going to review your records on how we can help you be successful before they even have to worry about being punished because they've made a good investment in in being smart and thoughtful. >> 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 governor knows the challenges, and we do too in congress, is paying for it. the americans job act directly addressed this need with the 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 both of you support it, and that's going to be my question. under aja, governor snyder, michigan will receive nearly $1 billion for school repairs and would support as many as 12,000 new jobs in your state. and governor malloy, under the aja, connecticut stands to

receive nearly $200 million and will support as many as 2400 jobs in connecticut. 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, many other places in our communities where they need to invest. a couple things typically missing are the right metrics and measures. have you to forgive me, i'm an old accountant so i like to measure things in terms of knowing what we're doing. but one of the challenges is we've had numerous cases in the past where people would build capital facilities without having the operating sources to use those facilities or apply them. so 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 -- potentially in these programs that really don't need these resources and others crumbling. how do we make sure those funds, for maintenance, for all those things are in place. because one of the great things i found in our budget that has been overlooked and 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 a $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 and 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 infrastructure but also build new infrastructure. 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 tieing that to ov system is an exemplary idea. >> tk arican society of civil engineers awarded the united states a "d" in the conduction of our infrastructure as you've been mentioning. 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 investment creates 23,000 well-paying jobs. the congressional budget office estimates that every dollar of infrastructure spending generates on average a