>> it's important. >> mr. wenger? >> yeah, i think any time you set wages at a certain level and if you don't have caps and you let people come in and meet that for what they're doing, their responsibility level, they're going to find what that wage should be. and as mr. black has said, there's going to be certain things that have a higher wage rate. maybe it's harder, but others you don't have the same responsibility. so let the market determine. here we are, agriculture, i can't think of a society more free market driven and let's let our wages be more free market driven. >> how do you feel? >> wee ear advocate ag super minimum wage tied to the state minimum wage. we're looking at the base hourly wage rate that is predictable. i would agree with the other gentlemen, the discretion of the grower, piece rate systems, responsibility, skill sets,

you'll pay more than that base salary wage rate. but it is so expensive to farm and what my members tell me consistently is this. all i know is that over the last 20 years our wage rates have gone up on average 4.7% a year. i'm scared to go to the bank and push all my chips into the middle of the table and sign the note to buy another farm or invest capital in infrastructure to try to grow more and do better. i'm scared. because i can't get my hands around where we're going with this labor issue. all i know is it's going up and it's driving me out of business. >> mr. goldstein, don't you think the adverse effective wage rate incentivizes those that don't want to participate in the program to hire those that are illegal? >> we think it's too low. it is based on the usda survey of agricultural employers wages. it includes wage rates paid to undocumented workers and because undocumented workers are willing to work for less than u.s.

citizens and legal immigrants, that survey is resulting in depressed wage rates. in addition -- >> yet my harvesters back home can't compete because there are too many being hired illegally at less than the average effective wage rate. >> we liked to legalize the undocumented work force and have greater enforcement of farm workers rights. you know, you just heard the gentleman, mr. wenger, was saying that some of the workers are making $30 an hour. i've been talking to some growers who say, you know, our workers make an average of $10 an hour, but can't we find a way to work together on the solution, maybe pay them 15 bucks an hour plus some health insurance? >> yet you don't have the flexibility. commissioner black? >> when we talk -- when you set things, one of our growers this year completed his work, completed his work, turned the paperwork in and in the process

they were changed one penny in our state. >> did the bureaucratic system help him change that paperwork up front? absolutely not. he went to the back of the line and start all over to change one penny. and so another good example of how that piece of work in the paperwork surely does create obstacles for people using the program. >> thank you, again. my time is up. >> i thank the gentlemen, and i thank all the members here. i'd like to thank our witnesses for their testimony today. without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submitted a -- additional questions and then ask you to respond in writing so we can make the answers part of the record. all members will have five legislative days to submit any additional materials and again, i'd like to thank the witnesses and this hearing is adjourned.

president obama is in washington state today to talk about jobs and exports at boeing plant in everett. the white house says boeing has seen a 45% increase in exports since 2006, and president obama says he has a plan to help other companies do the same. we'll have live coverage of his comments at 2:35, coming up in about 20 minutes.

before he was a political commentator on tv, pat buchanan ran for president three times. and booktv.org will be live at 7:00 eastern as aur thur timothy stanley recounts mr. buchanan's political life and career. the author talks to mr. buchanan at politics and prose bookstore in washington, d.c. this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week. every week end, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. republican presidential candidate mitt romney received the endorsement of michigan governor rick schneider yesterday. it took place during a luncheon hosted by local business groups. michigan groups are holding their primary elections on

tuesday, february 28th with 30 delegates at stake. thank you for putting on this great event. it's great to be back with you again. i was here last year. it's a wonderful group of people and a great opportunity to share. i'm very excited to be here and i hope you are, too, to have governor romney with us. if you think back to 2010, what did michigan look like? we had been at the bottom for a decade of all 50 states. we had a broken government, but we didn't give up. it wasn't just time to fix michigan. it was time to reinvenlt michigan. to do that we had to take a different approach. it's about teamwork and i appreciate your support in me and those wonderful words. it's about we doing this together. it was time to bring in people from the private sector t

business world, and blend that with the public sector to say there's a new better way of doing things within our state to show success. we are showing that success. we had a billion and a half dollar deficit. it's gone. we had the dumbest tax in united states, the michigan business tax, and it's gone. [ cheers and applause ] it was a job killer. to put it in perspective, i'm very proud to say the preliminary analysis of the tax foundation that just came out last week, they moved us from 49th in corporate taxation to seventh of the states. and during this process we recognized it's not just about balancing a budget.

it's about paying down long-term liabilities, about financial responsibility. we need common sense in this state just like we do need in our family. so we started paying down debt. we took care -- we eliminated over $5.6 billion of long-term liabilities last year. and that liability will not face our children anymore, and we are not stopping. you're not here to hear me today, but i could go on. unemployment compensation reform, workers comp reform, all these reforms with relentless positive action. no blame, no credit. work together and solve a problem and move forward. we're xwking a roll model about what success is all about and what teamwork is all about. that's why i'm here today. i'm very proud to be here today with governor romney.

one of the great challenges we face is at the national level. we've shown what can be done when you're at the bottom right here in michigan. if you look at what's going on in washington, the issues are very much the same. think about the deficit. trillions of dollars that need to be paid back that are being ignored, the need to balance a budget. very importantly, the need to create more and better jobs and create success for all of us. washington is a divided place. the job is not getting done, and we need the leadership in washington to get that job done. to do that you need the right people leading the charge. yes have a person in governor romney who has that background. he has a great combination of private sector experience, of knowing what it takes to create a job and how difficult that is. how to succeed in the private sector. he also brings that experience of being a chief executive of a state, of understanding what it

is to be in fub lick sector and to be successful in running a state. that's the experience we need in washington. we need to move forward because when i look at the challenges of michigan, one of the greatest things holding us back for all the fabulous things is washingt washington. it's holding us back. it's time for leadership that's going to move us forward. i'm very proud. me being the good nerd that i am, you know i reviewed the information. this governor has put together a strong plan, a jobs and economic growth plan that i strongly support that talks about more and better jobs, that talks about a tax system that's simple, fair and efficient, that talks about regulatory reform and talks about not just government activities, but talks about our people, our talent and how to connect our young people to jobs in the future and to plan for that bright future. another great thing, though,

that is icing on the cake, we have the right man here to help lead our country. but there's a special bonus. he was born and raised a michiganer. he understands our state. he's one of us. that's another area of particular pride. from my perspective it's a great opportunity to say we're showing relentless positive action, we're showing teamwork in michigan. now we have the opportunity to be part of a bigger team and a team led led by a great individual who can bring that same sort of success of taking on the issues we did here of deficits, of creating jobs, of all the requirements, bringing xhong sense to government and to bring those things to washington. that's where i'm very excited today to announce my endorsement of governor romney. with that let me turn it over to this fine gentleman. [ applause ] .

>> thank you governor. that was quite a record. if we could do in washington what your governor has done here we would be quite a nation. i hope to do in washington what your governor has done here. that's my system over here, by the way. i have a table -- i need to make sure my brother and sister stand up and your families. over here on the far right of the room, appropriately my family members. thank you, guys. i see attorney general bill shoot tea here, thank you for being here achbtd also the mayors, mayor kirksey. i don't know how long he's been in politics. it's impressive. mayor buckner and mayor brick learned from may your kirksey.

mary and dan, thank you for organizing this extraordinary event. a little history. i was born and raised here. i love this state. it seems right here, trees are the right height. i like seeing the lakes. i love the lakes, just something very special here, the great lakes but also the great inland lakes that dot the parts of michigan. i love cars. i grew up totally in love with cars. used to be in the '50s and '60s, if you showed me one square foot of a car, i could tell you what brand it was. with all the japanese cars, i'm not so good at it. i still know the american cars. i drive mustang. i love american cars. long may they rule the world. let me tell you. not all of my family's history difficult spite my mom and dad's extraordinary contributions to

the state is filled with praise and glory. i remember a 4th of july celebration in mount pleasant and my dad had been invited to come speak. it was a large audience. he got up and said it sure is great being here in mount clemons. my mom say, george, it's pleasant. he said, yes, it is pleasant here in mount clemons. so we can be a little slow on the up take. i've been watching with some interest the record of your governor and think his success is in no small measure due to the fact he doesn't care too much about what people think, doesn't care too much about what who gets credit and comes from a background of conservatism. you see, in the private sector you live in, you're either fiscally conservative or you're out of business. you can't borrow money year after year after year, spending more than you take in or you go bankrupt. so he brings that discipline.

it's almost second nature to someone in enterprise. you know if you don't balance your budget, ultimately you'll kill your enterprise, and killing a state is not a good thing to do. we're doing that to washington. our federal government keeps spending more and more than they take in. they're just killing the nation and our future. i'm asked, by the way, having like him come from the private sector, i spent 25 years in business, both venture capitalists for a while. how is business different than government? there are a lot of differences. one is, your job is harder. no question. but being in the private sector is very demanding and less forgiving. you see, in government, if you make a big mistake, you just blame the opposition party, and if the numbers don't look quite right, you go out and bond it and borrow more money. you can't do that in business. it's very unfor giving. you can't make major mistakes or you lose your job or other people's jobs or your investment

or their investment. incentives, you understand the power of incentives. government people don't tend to understand that, for instance, when they change tax codes, that that will have an impact on what people do. when the governor here reduced the infamous business activity tax, it will change behavior. it's not that his desire was to find a way to lower taxes on companies. instead he wanted to get more companies to come here and to grow here. that's the whole idea of incentives. government people don't tend to understand that. i had an example of that when i was a newly elected governor, i was trying to find ways to balance our budget. we were about $3 billion out of whack. i had promised i wouldn't raise taxes or cut vital services. how was i going to get the job done? i went through every government expense line, i went through line by line to see if there were things we could save money in. i was in the section looking for the homeless. we had a big program and still

do my state for the homeless. there was a line there for hotels. i said what is this referring to? they said, well, if we have someone who comes to a homeless shelter, let's say with a child, and they -- the homeless shelter is full, we tell them to check into the hotel and we'll pick up the bill. i said the word gets around, homeless shelter is full, they'll put you up in a hotel for free. i said i want to change the policy right now. i did on the spot. i said from now on i want our homeless shelters in the state to welcome anywhere that comes there that's homeless that needs the shelter. the person that's been there the longest, maybe 30 days, 60 days or longer, they go to the hotel. on an average nice in massachusetts we were paying for 599 rooms a night. after the policy was put in place, we had no hotel bills, none. and the savings in the tens of millions of dollars, we were able to use to help people get

permanent housing, to get housing vouchers to get out of homelessness. business approaches that understand the power of incentives are something that doesn't often exist in government and something you recognize with your marketing programs, everything you do is based on incentives, getting customers to do things that are in your best interest and theirs as well. there are other differences. i was amazed in government at how little understanding there is of business. it shocked me to see how many people in government had never spent any time in business. at the economy business is what drooifgs the revenues of government and the well-being of our citizens and yet they don't understand it. going back to my budget problem, we spent a lot of money in my state in our prisons an jails, very expensive, lots of employees, very high wage rates, and so i met with some legislators and happened to say, hey, what do you think about inviting in one of these for-profit jail management companies and having them give

us a bid and see whether they can do the job for lower costs. they said to me, but governor, there will be higher costs than we are. i say, well, why do you say that? they say, well, they're for profit and have to earn a profit. we don't have to learn a profit, so we're lower cost. i said i don't think you understand how the free enterprise system works. the whole idea of profit is to create incentives for entrepreneurs and innovators to find out ways to do things less and lex expensive with better and better quality. that's why america has out performed every other nation in the world. we have this incentive free sxwer prize makes us better at doing things. that's how the whole thing worked. i said to one group, by the way, where do you think profit goes? when you hear a business has reported $5 million in profit, where do you think that goes? they said, well. it goes to pays the executives their bonuses. i said actually none of it goes to the executives. profit is what is reported after

everybody has been paid. now they look like deer in the headlights and say, well, it goes to pay the owners. actually some of the profits of businesses go to pay the owners in dividends and so forth. i guess about 15% of american corporate-public profit goes to share holders. most of the profit goes to build the business, to build working capital. to build research, build facilities. more profit means more jobs and a brighter future. we don't want to depress profit in america. we want it to grow so we can put more people to work. i was shocked at how little understanding there is of what you do. my impression is from some government people, they don't like you very much. i love you. i like the fact that you're entrepreneurs and working to create jobs and build enterprises. that makes america stronger and provides, by the way, more resources to the state so you can do a better job building roads, taking keir of seniors, building schools. it works together.

now, there's another place where i'm afraid there's a disconnect. government, as i mentioned, they don't understand the idea of balancing the budget and the critical need to balance the budget. i look at president obama and his administration and feel almost every dimension because of the lack of business experience or perhaps experience in the private sector or some other kind he has taken actions which have made it harder for our economy to recover. and i ask people, are the policies of the obama administration making it more likely for you to hire or less likely? i think i know the answer. i know the answer because i talk to business people all over the country and they're not excited about the policies. obama care didn't make it more likely for people in the medical business, device business to build products because they're getting a new tax, not to encourage people wondering what the cost of employees will be to hire more people. there was card check and stacking the national labor

relations board with union stooges. in a setting like that, are you likely to more hire people? no. dodd-frank, did we need to up dwaet regulations in financial services? absolutely. did we need dodd-frank with 2,000 pages of regulations and hundreds and thousands of pages of new regulation? no. what did it do? it made it harder for community bankers. i was with one money center bank the other day. the chief executive said they had hundreds of millions of lawyers working on i'm plechlting dodd-frank. my guess is there aren't many community banks that can afford hundreds of lawyers. bigger banks are getting bigger. community banks are having a harder and harder time. it didn't help small business to have dodd-frank passed the way it was. energy policies, when the president said no to keystone pipeline, does that encourage energy here and business here? i met with the chief executive

of dow chemical. he said to me that they announced a $20 billion factory that they're building in saudi arabia. he said they hoped to build it in the united states but they couldn't count on a reliable supply of natural gas because of the epa regulators that are making it harder and harder to understand if we can get the gas out of the ground. so they had to build elsewhere. the president's policies of multiplying regulations. he's been adding regulations 2 1/2 times greater than his predecessor. more regulations, dodd-frank, obama care, card check, cap and trade, holding off on energy resources, that has not made it more likely for america and our economy to recover. it's made it harder for this economy to recover. thank heavens the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the american people is winning out and over coming all these burdens that have been placed upon it by the obama administration. if i'm president, i want to be the ally of entrepreneurs and

job creators. i want to make america the best place in the world once again to grow and thrive in a business and to hire more people. when the head of coca-cola, an american icon says that the business environment in china is more friendly than the business environment in america, you know we've got a problem. so one of the things i do -- probably almost the exact opposite of what the president has done. one of the things i'd do is end the practice of what i'll call crony capitalism. what do i mean by that? when a president of the united states begins taking your money to give to his donors, that's a problem. and that changes the dynamic of a free enterprise system. so when the president says i'm going to take your money and give it to tesla and fis kerr, two new car companies which, by the way, fis kerr now builds their cars in finland, that's not good. when the president says we're going to take your money and put

it in a battery company that's now out of business, that's not good. when he takes $500 million and puts it into solyndra, that's not good for american enterprise and innovation. you know this and the governor knows this as an old venture capitalist. my guess is the president wanted to encourage solar energy. he thought by taking $500 million and giving it as a loan to a company would do that. it did just the opposite, just the opposite. not understanding the private enterprise system explains why he doesn't understand that. there are about, my guess is, about 100 or more entrepreneurs in america that have ideas for solar energy. and they're going out trying to get funding for their business, for their startup, for their ideas, going to venture capitalists and angels and their parents to try to get funding. but when the whole community hears that the government has picked a winner, solyndra and given them $500 million, guess

what happens to all those other businesses? their funding drys up. who wants to give $2 million to startup a little solar company when the government is giving $500 million to start up the one of their choice. by the way, what happens when government puts in $500 million? they build a taj mahal for corporate headquarters, big glass exterior and so forth. have you seen most startups, that's not what it looks like. when we started a staples, i think the amount of money that went in was $5 million or $10 million, the corporate headquarters was in the back of a shopping mall. our chairs were these naug hide chairs, you had to be athletic to get out of the chairs. that's the way the private sector works. the governmental sector, huge money, picking winners and losers and killing entrepreneurialism throughout the country. it's the wrong course. the right course, let the free enterprise system work. don't try and guide the market with government interference. get taxes down for employers. our taxes for employers are the

highest in the world. you made michigan competitive by getting your tax rates down. america is uncompetitive with the highest tax rates in the world for employers. tied with japan, 35%. then you also have to have regulators that see their job as not just finding the bad guys, but also encouraging the good guys, making it more likely that you want to invest. you also have to take advantage of our energy resources. coal, oil, gas, nuclear, solar, wind, ethanol. use all those resources. so we have an ample supply of energy ourselves and don't have to send hundreds of billions outside our country buying energy. by the way, put in place that keystone pipeline. that's a no-brainer. [ applause ] china, look, i like free trade. it's really good. we're a very productive nation. we make more stuff per person

than any other major economy in the world. that means we want to sell stuff to the nations, open upt opportunities for us to grow. if someone cheats, if someone steals your patents, your des n designs, your know how, if they steal those things, they get an unfair advantage that they haven't paid for. if they also hack into your computers and steal your future designs, it makes it worse. if they artificially hold down the value of their currency and, therefore, make their products artificially cheap and drive you out of business, that isn't fair trade. that's unfair trade. if i'm president of the united states, i will finally take china to the corporate and say look, you guys, i'm going to label you a currency manipulator. we won't let china continue to steal jobs from the united states of america. [ applause ] like your governor, i think to create jobs it helps to have had

a job, and i have. i spent my life in the -- i spent my life in the private sector. i appreciate how difficult it is to do things that you're doing. i love the businesses of this staechlt i love the auto industry. i want to see it thrive and grow. i'm glad it went through a managed bankruptcy process. i'm delighted it's profitable. in my view, this auto industry can continue to lead the world and must continue to lead the world to keep detroit with a vibrant and priceless future. let me tell you, i think this is a campaign and i've said this before about the soul of america. the question is do we believe in a vision of america more and more like europe with the government saying we're going to take from some to give to others in the name of fairness, and in a setting like that the on