committees. we'll develop a system in which hardworking people can take the lead and eliminate uncultivated land and further consolidate the consolidation of farmland. we'll relax requirements for agricultural cooperatives and serve to promote diverse participants into the agricultural sector. further steps will be continue to eliminate the practice of kulticultivated acreage. we will advance structural reforms to ensure the agricultural sector is competitive and market responsive. change is the only eternal. these words were spoken by a man who breathed new life into the tradition of japanese style painting and engaged in the challenge of reform during the meji era. we slu not be afraid of change in the face of tradition. agriculture is the very backbone of japan. it's bro tekted our beautiful homes and communities. it's for just this reason that we must implement change now.

we will accomplish agricultural reform without fail and create new styles of agriculture, which young generations can open new horizons with their power and passion. we're aiming for global markets. there is also tremendous potential in the forestry and fishery industries. last year total exports of agricultural forestry and fisheries products set a new record exceeding 600 billion yen. however, this figure is still very small. the global food market is values around 340 trillion yen, we will advance integrated reforms in japan and overseas, to bring safe and delicious japanese proceed deuce to the world. we will step forward into an open world guaranteeing japan's national interest. we will work to solidify economic growth. the negotiations on the trans pacific partnership are in their

final phase with an outcome in sight. taking the lead with the united states in these negotiations, the government will aim to bring them to an early conclusion. on the japan eu economic partnership agreement, we will accelerate negotiations to reach an agreement in principle within the year in the face of an ever more globalized economy, any economy that cannot compete cannot hope to survive. this is something that the government recognizes as well. we cannot avoid the reforms required to meet the needs of this more open world. we'll make it mandatory for all listed companies to comply with the new corporate governance code and align with the international standards or they must provide an explanation of why they cannot comply. we will also reduce the effective corporate tax rate by 2.5%. we will reduce the current rate of nearly 35% to less than 30% over the next few years, advance

in corporate tax reforms that will bring taxation to levels that compare favorably internationally. the government will establish a new patient oriented medical care system to ensure the top global world class care can be received in japan. responding to the wishes of patients. and based on their application will make it possible for patients to receive cutting edge medical care in combination with medical treatment already covered by insurance. further, when the safety and effectiveness of such treatment is established we will make them available through the national health insurance system. we will also implement reform of medical -- of the medical corporation system. we will work to enhance management transparency through the introduction of external auditors. we will establish a new heck nick to promote cooperation among multiple entities with various specialties. enhancing community health care. electric power system reforms

will soon be entering their final stages. the distribution networks will be separated from power generation and retail power allowing fair access to all. the retail gas business will be fully liberalized, eliminating barriers to market entry. we will work to create a competitive and dynamic energy market. inexpensive and stable power supply is the lifeline of the japanese economy. we will advance responsible energy policies. the increase in electric tariffs is placing a heavy burden on the daily lives of japanese citizens as well as on small businesses. nuclear power plants that have been shown to meet the new regulatory standards will be restarted, paying the greatest attention to scientific and technological determine nance. with the support of the national government, we will advance work to develop thorough evacuation

plans, in areas where nuclear power stations are located we provide careful explanations to gain understanding of local governments and other stakeholders. our long term policy of reducing the generation remains unchanged. we will mobilize all measures to promote energy conservation and reduce renewable energy sources. through the regulatory reforms of our cabinet, the first steps were made toward realizing a dream of a hydrogen based society last year we will accelerate the installation around the nation, as well as the disemenation of the fuel celled vehicles we will strengthen energy efficiency measures including the mandatorying engineered standards for large buildings. safety, stable supply, efficiency and compatibility with the natural environment. these are the factors which we will examine thoroughly as we create the best energy mix for japan. we will also take the lead in

measures to counter global warming. looking ahead to the 21st session of the conference of the parties of the u.n. framework on convention on climate change the government will formulate new goals and formulate an action plan. we will -- to move forward with all these reforms we are pursuing administrative reform, we will transfer parts of the responsibility of the cabinet secretary in the cabinet office, which have grown over the course of past administrations, to other ministries and agencies. to allow the government to fully and flexibly leverage the capabilities of the cabinet to carry out priority policy measures, we will consolidate 17 existing agencies into 7. these reforms are not just about numbers, the purpose of this consolidation is to push forward with our different reforms, such as an agricultureal policy that raises competitiveness.

by introducing inspections by the financial services agents. we will establish a governance system suited to the work done by each of these corporations. enhancing its -- their ability to implement policies in april, we will launch the japan agency for medical research and development. this will engage in groundbreaking research as the development of new cancer drugs the application in clinical situations of ips cells, et cetera. we'll make japan the world's most innovative friendly country. we will create a system for national r&d entities. we will support the kind of ambitious research that could compete and completely transform japan's society and economy in these fields that include it robotics, marine research and biotechnology. knowledge and action are one.

these are the words of yoshida. a teacher who pride ss -- we will follow through on our growth strategy. by carrying out bold regulatory reform, we will boost productivity and raise japan's global competitiveness. we will step out into the open world and harness the global growth, it is clear what we must do, the question now is will we do it? or will we stay put? what we need here in this diet is not merely the back and forth of criticism, we need action, what we need is to carry out reform. i ask you all to join me in implementing all reforms with an eye to gentleman participate's future. in three arrows of economic policies that we have pursued

over the past two years are clearly generating results. the number of bankruptcies of small and medium sized enterprises reached its lowest level in 24 years last year, over 80% of prospective graduates have begun the new year with unofficial job offers in hand. the percentage of university graduates, with unofficial job offers is at its highest level in six years and is at its highest level, 21 years for high school graduates. for the last year, the ratio has been such that there are more companies seeking employees than people seeking work. permanent employment is also at its highest level since surveys began ten years ago. we will expand opportunities for permanent employment to temporary workers who desire it. entities that dispatch personnel will be obligated to engage in moving people to permanent employment including by encouraging companies to employ

them directly. we're also working to ensure that temporary workers receive equal treatment as the regular employees and companies to which they are dispatched. we will create an environment in which everyone's choices are respected and realized. last year saw the highest wage increases in the past 15 years, this spring, also expanding corporate earnings, will lead to wage increases. furthermore, it's becoming easier for small and medium sized enterprises to pass on their raw material costs as higher prices, thus sustaining the positive cycle of the economy. government, labor and management all agree on this, to break free of deflation, we postponed the inspection tax rate to 10% for 18 months until april 2017. wage increases will continue in the spring of next year, and also the following year. and we will spread the warm winds of economic recovery

throughout the country. as a result, the three targets of economic revitalization, fiscal rehabilitation will be realized simultaneously. the next year's budget the amount of new japanese government bonds issued will be below 40 trillion yen for the first time in six years, and the budget will achieve the goal of reducing by half the deficit in the primary ballots. we're also sticking to our goal of reaching financial soundness by fiscal 2020, concrete plans will be drawn up by this summer. although the consumption tax increase tax was postponed, the results of economics will be used to enhance social security. assistance from medical assistance for people suffering with intractable illnesses will be substantially broadened. from last month, 107 illnesses were made newly eligible for childhood chronic diseases. assistance to intractable

diseases will also be widened to 300 illnesses by july. the high medical expense system was revised from last month. low income earners medical expenses will be eased and likewise the burden that they bear. we will promote measures to respond to the problem dimension, in addition to prompt diagnosis and responses, we will create an environment that will allow people with dimension to continue wherever possible to live within the communities they are familiar with, alongside financial support for the national health insurance system, it's fiscal management will be shifted from cities, towns and villages, to prefectures in order to strengthen the foundations of universal health care. we will increase nursing care insurance premiums for households with senior citizens pay of caregivers will be improved by 12,000 yen per month.

and we'll strive to enhance services at the same time, overall nursing care costs will be held down in order to ease the burden on users that come from premium increases. we will move forward with reviewing the management of social welfare corporations. reform them into providers of welfare services that contribute to the community. we will assist households that are raising families the new systems for supporting children and child rearing will be imt plimted on schedule for april. we remain committed to eliminating child care waiting lists. pay for people involved in early child care information. and child care will be improved by the equivalent of 3%. we will respond clearly to childhood needs. including the after schoolkids clubs, that utilize elementary school classrooms and enhancing

child care for children who are sick. i have high hopes that women who have focused on child care in the course of their lives will also lend their support in this effort, we will launch the professional qualification of child care supporter. child rearing is also a career i hope that to see that women with their invaluable experiences in child rearing will take advantage of their strengths as child care supporters, i have firm faith in the power of women. i want to create a society where all women create -- can shine in their lives. we will resubmit the bill to promote women's empowerment and get this passed at a close date. we will create an environment in which women can be more dynamically engaged, starting this year, the percentage of women among all newly hired

national civil servants are 30%. women are in leadership positions in all sectors by at least a percentage of 30% by 2020. to this end we will support companies that proactively recruit women, releasing information about percentage of women executives and providing vocational training to women. we will provide diverse employment opportunities for senior citizens. resource centers will enhance their functions as functions of ploirmt. disabilities, intractable diseases and other serious illnesses, if everyone can act with purpose and assume active rolls in society japan will no doubt enjoy robust growth even in the faith of declining birth right and an aging population. to realize this goal, we must dramatically reform the existing

work system with its uniform working hours along with our social mind-set. the options available for employees will be expanded to allow for flexible and diverse working arrangements, tailored to each person's circumstances, including the needs of child care and nursing care needs. a new national campaign will be launched to transform summer lifestyles. during the summer when days are long, people will be able to go to work earlier in the morning and enjoy time with family and friends in the evening. expanded flex time arrangements will allow employees to opt for longer working hours before their summer vacation in order to take longer breaks with their children. in the case of highly specialized jobs a new work arrangement will be established to allow employees to be

evaluated on performance rather than their long work hours. long work hours will be kept under control by raising overtime rates and other measures, further we will o move forward to prevent overwork and create a society that prol moats a better work life balance by the creation of systems can take their full paid vacations. young people will shape the future of japan i hope that young people live up to their fullest potential and play active rolls in society. we will strengthen measures for the employment of young people. over 30% of young people quit their jobs soon after being hired. we will, therefore, request that companies recruiting new graduates provide their potential employments with information on overtime training, turnover, et cetera fp. we'll also have public employment bureaus not accept job advertisements from

companies suspected of deliberately maintaining a high turnover of people. we will support young people with irregular employment in their efforts to secure regular employment through career development promotion subsidies, there are many attractive small and medium sized enterprises. we'll make sure young people are more aware of these opportunities. my daughter is working to find a job with a positive frame of mind. as a 20-year-old daughter she wrote that her daughter had a learning disability in a young age and long struggled with the fact that she was different from her friends. my daughter's self-loathing gradually worsened. sometimes she cried wishing she would die. her radiance faded, each time went to school. nevertheless she continued to ainterpreted school, determined not to be left behind. the daughter stopped attending school, when she was a first

year student in junior high school. however, she then discovered an alternative school and was able to rebuild her confidence and resume her studies. the mother wrote that her daughter regained her courage and is now searching for a job, even while struggling with social prejudice. the letter concludes as follows. children are a mirror of adults. unless the values of adults change bullying will never end. i sincerely hope that japan strives to become a society that accepts diverse people, diverse learning styles, and diverse ways of life. a society where people accept and respect each other. this is my small wish as a mother. it is only natural that she should embrace this wish. adults have a responsibility to create an environment where all children can learn and grow with confidence. the government will support diverse learning styles

including alternative schools. we will reform the education system comprised of six years of elementary schools and three years of junior high school. we will make alternative forms of education available during those nine years, which will not bind students to their class years. rather than resignation in the face of failure, we want children to know the joys of success. with the collaboration of local people, we will expand no cost learning support, such as the use of after school hours after junior high schools, to 2,000 locations nationwide, the futures of our children should not be affected by the economic circumstances of their families. childhood poverty is a grave challenge to the fundamental principle of a sounds society. that if you work hard, you will be rewarded edrewarded. we will take steps to alleviate the financial burden that education places on low income

households and realize tuition free education we will establish an environment that enables students to advance to specialized training colleges. students will be expanded for university students we will accelerate the trend away from interest bearing to interest free student loorns we will ensure that in the future all students in need of financial aide will be able to receive interest free student loans together we can create a society with opportunities for everyone where everyone can realize his or her dreams. shall we gather? let us together create such a society. >> the program will be created for student that is have taken up careers in local regions. nearly half of the young people in their teens and 20s living in

tokyo said that they wished to move to such regions. this is a very encouraging number. local regions contain opportunities. we will strongly encourage support for young people as they take on their challenges. we will eliminate the practice of insisting on personal guarantees. which means that if you fail once, you lose everything. we will see to it that financial institutions and enterprises eliminate this practice in government procurement we will give precedence to companies that have been in business for less than 10 years, and increase opportunities for new enterprises, to pursue new businesses. further, we will support companies that find opportunities in local regions. tax support will be provided to companies that relocate their headquarters to these regions and expand investment and employment. we will provide support for the commercialization of hometown specialty goods. and we will also help them in

the development of their markets. regional areas will play the leading role in growth. in the past two years, the number of tourists visiting japan increased by 5 million, and surpassed 13 million, a new record. we will aim for further increases by relaxing visa requirements and undertaking other strategic measures. i would like visitors to japan to fully enjoy the wealth of unique tourism resources from north to south, including abundant natural resources, beauty, culture, history and food. we will enhance customers, quarantine and immigration services in japan. we will reinforce the function of hanada airport the gateway connecting tokyo to the rest of the country, with the understanding of local resident s flight routes will be advised by 2020.

similarly, we will increase the sophistication of slight control functions to increase landing and takeoff slots by 40000. in okinawa flights from asia, a second runway will be constructed. we attach great importance to the promise we make with okinawa, to secure 300 billion yen in the prefecture, until physical 2021. we will do our most to implement this budget. we will fully support the engenuity and creativity of opportunities. administrative and financial reform that rewards the efforts of local regions were promoted from the regions perspective. hometown tax people can pay part of their taxes to the locality of their choice, through the simplification of hometown taxes i hope many more

people will become supporters of local regions. we will adopt proposals from these regions and transfer authority to them, including the authority for the conversion of farmland to other uses. moreover, the strategic zone system will be evolved on a national basis in order to carry out regulatory reforms. the residents of mountainous regions and remote islands have maintained the rich traditions and beauty of japan. we will create small but convenient communities that will bring together in one location, the necessary daily services such as health care, welfare and shopping. these locations will be linked with neighboring communities through public transportation. it is first and foremost important that people lead safe

and secure lives, we will step up our measures to ensure that people are protected against crimes, such as stocking and fraud against the elderly. to protect children from abuse, we will establish a 189 national toll-free number for children's counseling offices that will allow them to take early notice of calls for help. drawing on the lessons of the eruption of mt. ontake we will mitigate volcanic eruptions. tourists and climbers to cope with landslides caused by the torrential rains which have increased in recent years. we will maintain infrastructure, prepare evacuation plans and conduct drills. we will push ahead in making the nation's infrastructure more resilient for the implementation of disaster and prevention

measures. last year japan was hit by natural disasters, the self-defense forces police officers, fire department, personnel and other rescue workers perform demanding rescue work during each disaster, working night and day, despite the danger. it was snowing a lot and we were scared, last december, many communities in toke seem ma prefecture became isolated. children at one local high school sent a letter to the sdf personnel who were dispatched to the disaster. we were overwhelmed with appreciation when the self-defense force arrived and helped us, we wanted to do something in return so we are writing this letter. i also would like to take this opportunity to once again express appreciation to the rescue workers for their high sense of mission and responsibility responsibility.

last october the self-defense force returned to japan. in this intercontinental tour they were tasked with bringing home the remains of 1347 soldier soldiers from guadalcanal. this was made possible my the solomon islands. we will work to make sure that the remains of the japanese soldiers, many of whom remain in other countries are repatriated as quickly as possible. this is our responsibility as people living in the world today in iwo jima, we will complete the evacuation work by the end of next year, to accelerate the repatriation of the remains of

some 12,000 japanese soldiers. the peace we enjoy today is built upon the precious sacrifices of those who lost their lives, who were anxious for the fate of their homeland and wished for the happiness of their families. the path japan has taken as a peace loving nation will remain unchanged. against the backdrop of a changing situation, we will follow this path even more tenaciously. we will fully and resolutely protect the lives and peaceful livelihoods of the japanese people. to this end we are developing security legislation that enables seamless responses to any situation. this year marks 70 years since the end of world war ii. japan has developed as a free and democratic nation based on feelings of deep remorse regarding world war ii. and we have contributed to peace and prosperity in the world taking pride in this we must be a nation that contributes even

more to peace and stability in the world. as we head to future decades, we intend to convey to the world the message of our strong resolve in this regard. japan will share with the world our experiences and lessons learned from many natural disasters. we will jointly address the challenges unique to island nations at the pacific islands leaders meeting to be held in iwake. there are no human rates violations against women, to realize a world in which all women shine we would like to invite the participation of women who are active in their roles around the world to convene in japan this fall. this year also marks 70 years since the atomic bombings japan will lead the national effort on

nuclear disarmament and nuclear proliferation. japan will be a candidate for a nonpermanent seat on the u.n. security counsel. we are determined to play a major role in refirming the u.n. in the 21st century, this year japan will be a country trusted by the world. i plan to make this year a year that bee fits the 70th anniversary of the ending of world war ii working with countries such as awe stral ya, asean member states, india, with whom we share the ideals of freedom, democracy. the japan alliance is the linchpin of our diplomacy the

bonds of the u.s./japan alliance has have been reinvigorated. further enhance deterrents much we will also proceed with the realignment of u.s. forces in japan in accordance with existing bilateral agreements by the end of march the west futenma housing unit will be returned. we will continue to take steps to relocate the base to nago city, while continuing our efforts to gain the understanding of the people in okinawa. we will continue to engage in reducing the impact of the bases in okinawa, not through unsubstantiated words, but through our action ss.

japan and china which bear great responsibility for the peace and prosperity of the region are bound by an inseparable relationship. i held a sum itd meeting with the president, we agirled our princeiple of a mutually beneficial relationship, and took a step toward improving our relations. we will strengthen our friendship while deepening dialogue at various levels and meet to rise to meet the expectations. this year marks the 50th anniversary of the japan rok relations. the door for xi log is always open. with russia, the reality is that our two countries have yet to conclude a peace treaty, even now, 70 years after the end of world war ii.

i hope to realize the president's visit to japan at an appropriate time this year. building on the series of summit meetings held thus far. we will continue negotiations with russia, while deepening our cooperation in a range of fields including the economy and culture. as for north korea, we will continue to urge north korea to resolve all outstanding issues, including the abductees, nuclear and missile issues. north korea should conduct investigations honestly and report the results to gentleman participate honestly as possible. action for action, japan will continue to make its utmost efforts to achieve a resolution of the issue. at the end of last year, japan

launched the asteroid explorer thus continuing our pursuit of space exploration. they will dig into an asteroid crater to collect samples. the core technology that made this mission possible was conceived in fukushima. they were forced to extend their activities in the great earthquake driven by their passion, this group of engineers gave birth to a world first technology. fukushima will be reborn as a region producing leading research research. we will work to build up a cluster robotics related industries in a region along the coast impacted by the nuclear accident. we will proceed with the instruction of interim storage facilities. the government will also stand at the fore to implement measures for dealing with contaminated water, we will revise special measures to

enable seamless establishment of reconstruction hugs in preparation for the lifting of evacuation orders. we will enhance financial assistance to support those returning to their homes in their efforts to rebuild their lives. at long last in march, we will fully open the joban expressway which runs through the disaster afflicted areas. i would like many tourists to visit the tohoku region and hope the reopening of the expressway will serve as a catalyst for the construction of the areas. work has begun on 90% of the projects for removing housing to areas of higher elevation and 80% of the public housing projects, along with rebuilding homes we will strive to look after disaster victims who are at risk of becoming isolated. we will provide them with psychological support and rebuild the livelihoods of those in the agricultural and forestry industries. >> after collecting samples from

the asteroid using technology conceived in fukushima they will return to japan in 2020 much i have no doubt at that time, tohoku will have undergone a complete transformation. rather, the onus is on us to transform tohoku. won't you join me in reinventing tohoku as a region of new creativity and potential? in the same year, japan will host the olympic and paraolympic games, we will guarantee that these are a success. without the guidance of a minister dedicated to the task we will counter terrorism measures. we will establish a new sports agency to promote the value of sports throughout the world fp further we will create an

environment in which everyone from children to the elderly as well as people with disabilities or intractable illnesses can all enjoy sports, we the people of japan, now have a shared goal in the year 2020. last year, the sea of japan japan led the world in the successful extraction of full fledged samples of shallow methane hydrate, the so-called burning ice. the common sense notion that japan is a resource poor country may no longer hold true. japan can change. it all depends on our will and our actions. for close to 15 years, japan suffered from deflation. i feel that the greatest issue here was the fact that the japanese people were robbed of their confidence. but nothing will change if we sit by i'dly feeling sorry for ourselves. if all we do is constantly criticize one another, nothing new will be achieved.

people of japan, be confident. these were the words uttered by yoshida, the prime minister who laid the foufrn dags for japan's closed war reconstruction. there's no reason why we, the people of today cannot do it. i would like to call once more on each and every one of the diet members here in this chamber for the sake of all the people of japan, let us work together across party and faction lines to reform the electoral system and reduce the number of seats in the diet. let us deepen public discussion regarding constitutional re revision. we will pave the way for japan's future. and to that end, won't you join

me in ensuring that this will be the diet to achieve the most dramatic reform since the end of world war ii? now is the time that through our efforts, japan can achieve growth once again. we can shine once more at the world's center stage. we are regaining our confidence. now then everyone. let us make a new start, right here and now, to turn this budding confidence into full fledged conviction. thank you for your attention. [ applause ] join us tomorrow. the senate banking committee will hear from the chairman of

the reserve, testifying on a monetary policy report to congress our live coverage gets underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here on c-span 3. wednesday's secretary of state john kerry will talk about his fiscal year 2016 budget request. to be discussed in a hearing, live wednesday 10:00 a.m. eastern also here on c-span 3. >> tonight on the communicators we spoke with two industry executives at the consumer electronics show in las vegas. senior vice president at ericson, and senior vice president talk about their companies and the technology in which the internet mobile phones and the cloud operate. >> we talk about something we call the network society. the network society is a society where everything that can benefit from having a connection will actually have one. and we put a vision forward in 2009 in barcelona in the trade show that's going on there of

the 50 billion connected devices in 2020. which has caught on very well in the world. that opened many people's minds that the mobile industry is not limited to the smart phones and the devices that we carry around personally. it also is a great technology to connect so many other things and to be able to build a better society based on those technologies. >> the internet started with this thing people needed to get to with a dialup connection. we brought it from that thing somewhere to your home. we brought it from being your home to be with every device you carry around. the next stage is about taking it from all these mobile devices, to things, information and connecting not just things, but things with people. and processes with people and things so we can create a whole internet of everything. i think we're at the early stages of building up that internet of everything. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on

c-span2. the political landscape has changed with the 114th congress not only are there new republicans and democrats in the house, and senate. there's 108 women in congress including the first african-american republican in the house, and the first woman veteran in the senate keep track of the members of congress by using congressional chronicle. the page has lots of useful information there, including voting results and statistics about each session of congress. new congress, best access on c-span.org. the national governor's association winter meeting is going on this week. politico hosted its fifth annual state solutions conference. they interviewed the governors

of tennessee and florida. this is about 1:10. >> thank you, marty and thank you again for enduring the elements to be here this morning. it's an exciting lineup with governor -- >> how did i get the beginning spot? >> former mayor of knoxville won election in 2010 you've reformed tennessee service, stripped ten-year protections, expanded charter schools, now you have four more years, we'll talk about some of your agenda for that. you've earned a reputation in tennessee as an ernest kind of no drama guy, someone who

doesn't low a lot of red meat is practical. a lot of governors i talked to about you in the past, they describe you as someone who wants to talk about policy, and that self-effacing manner that's helped make you popular in tennessee. no real democrat ran against you last time, all those things made you to some a surprising pick to be the governor's association chair, it's a job where you throw a lot of red meat, you're an attack dog, it's not your steal. >> it's not. >> i think in politics, you start to get in trouble when you're not who you are. that's not who i am, 'not why i ran for office but i still think our -- r.j. has a role to

play to republican governors like me and a lot of other people. >> absolutely. i want to talk about that and i want to start on the policy front and the state solutions. you just called a special session at the start of your new term you spent months negotiating with the federal government. a whole host of different groups, and then it got killed. >> quickly. >> quickly. >> it died a quick death, in a special committee, i want to talk about what the future is there, but i also want to get your ride, i mean, big picture, we're talking to a lot of governors today. matt meade in wyoming tried to do the same thing rick scott our next speaker said he wanted to expand medicaid, got nowhere, dead on arrival in the state legislature john kasich had to go around his legislature to do it we've seen a lot of republican governors say let's

do this, let's get people coverage and then their own party's legislature blocks it. what do you think's going on there, what's driving that? >> i think from my standpoint -- i'm not a fan of the affordable care act either but not for the reasons most people start with. i think they messed up with two huge issues around health care in our country. number one is access no matter what part of your -- if someone's primary method of health care is going to the emergency room, it's not good for them, it's not smart costwise, access is an issue and everybody should say that the second thing is cost, my issue with the affordable care act. they didn't really attack the cost side in ways they could medicare being able to negotiate for pharmacy benefits and you can keep on going down the line for things they could have done at the time. the issue is this, if you're going to attack a problem, you should be really upset when

people take the easy apple but don't get the hard one, the easy apple, let's cover more people. you get the health care providers. they're getting paid for people they weren't getting paid for, now they are. the hard thing was to attack costs, that's eating up everybody's budget the government is about to be a large health insurance company that happens to have an army and a navy, medicaid is taking every dollar in the budget, we have to do something to address the costs, our revised proposal for what to do about medicaid we think addresses the cost side, by having some incentive in there. but that you could get reimbursed for if you made health choices didn't use the emergency room for a nonemergency basis. things that anybody can do regardless of their check set of circumstances, you could get credit back to your account for that. and then on the provider's side

to really move toward more of an outcome based system, instead of just fee for service, you get a hip transplant, you're paying the anesthesiologist, the pharmacist, we're going to pay x dollars and pay even more if you get a good result. we have to go there and our program, we think sped it up. but obviously what happened is, in our state we have a red state, 132 state legislatures 100 of whom are republican. it's an historic shift. i'm the first governor in history to ever serve with a republican majority. so we went from rarely ever having a republican majority to have these -- it went from a majority to super majority, now they call it a super duper majority, because we're so big. we had this historic light blue to red switch and we have so many legislatures that we're terrified of being identified with something that -- >> is the obama care brand so

toxic, even though you can argue it's not obama care. >> there's no question and i -- when made the argument, here's what obama care is what they did and here's what we're saying a program that had premiums and co-pays it really was a different idea but it was heart hard to get away from that. you say they should get past the politics but some of that is leftover residue of if you like it you can keep it. that led people to say we can't really trust them. >> in your state of the state speech last week you said because this didn't happen doesn't mean the problem doesn't go away. what is next if it is such a toxic brand and you went and did so much work to get there? is medicaid expansion going to happen while you're governor? >> i certainly hope so. we think that the approach that we made was a practical smart answer to a real problem.

the program we think would have covered an additional 285,000 tennesseeans who don't have health insurance. again, they're getting health coverage. they're just getting it in the wrong way. the emergency room, getting care there, it's the wrong place the wrong time and the wrong way. what we want to do is to provide a different way to get health coverage which is still important and to do something to attack the cost curve which is really important. our providers are willing to work with us on payment reform, but they're going to work with us a little more wholeheartedly if they see coverage for some people that they're not getting paid for now. >> one of the opponent's argument is that the federal government is going to leave states holding the bag that they're going to cover it for the first couple years and then they're not going to provide the money and all these people are going to have care an it's going to be a tough situation. do you think the federal government will be good for the money? >> let me say this.

this is going to sound odd for a republican to argue. the united states of america has never missed a medicaid payment. that's what we're talking about. that's important to remember. there is some fear from folks and that's why all the if you like it you can keep it, all that stuff built into the fear that people have. in our case we actually had really what the supreme court ruling said, the original one that put all this in the state's hands, said that the federal government couldn't force stands to expand who they covered. so if they can't force you to expand who they covered, then they can't make you keep covering those folks. we had a supreme court ruling. we had an attorney general of our state give a ruling that said if we didn't want to cover them any longer, we wouldn't have to. then we had a letter from the secretary of hhs saying the same thing. but again, people just couldn't get past the concern. >> let's switch over to education. >> okay. >> you're kind of an education governor in a lot of ways.

you accepted federal rates funds and you signed legislation last year guaranteeing two free years of college for tennessee graduates. president obama praised you during an education summit in nashville. what do you make of obamacare's community college plan at the federal level? is it distinct from yours? >> you're always flattered to be copied, but there would be -- so when he came to tennessee to announce his plan, but there are some real differences. ours is a last dollar scholarship scholarship. you apply for every bit of financial aid and we pay the last dollar. there's basically was we will pay for everybody to have two years free of community college. there's a reason they went their way. ours is obviously a lower cost and we did it basically at very little cost to the state no cost to the state's general fund. the reality is the gap for most people to go to community college is really small.

the numbers are amazingly low. >> like they need a couple hundred dollars? >> yeah. exactly. $400 or $500 to go for a year. but if nobody in your family has ever been to college you don't ever fill out your fasta form -- and by the way if you've never filled automatic a fasta form, do it. you'll feel the frustration. study after study has shown, if you're a first generation college student, you need somebody to help hold your hand, explain -- when the act comes up, you got to take it that day. if you grew up in a college family you know if the act is on saturday you can't go on sunday. or classes start and we had -- we actually tested this program in knox county the county i'm

from, for six years prior to rolling this out on a state-wide basis. we put in place mentors where every student had a mentor. the mentor had five students to work with volunteers. we have almost 10,000 tennesseeans who have volunteered to be mentors. the questions they got is okay my first class is next week and it's in the mwf building. that means your class meets on monday wednesday, friday. if you hadn't been there you don't know that. there's a lingo and a culture about college that people don't know. so the mentor piece is another distinct that we have. >> do you oppose the obama plan? >> i don't oppose. i think states -- i'm a governor so i'm going to say this. states can come up with their own methods to do things like this. the idea we obviously think is right, but let states figure out how to do it. >> i want to transition to some

political questions and i think we're going to end up taking some audience questions, too. i think you all know the hashtag polgovs. as we talked about -- >> yeah we did. >> you follow chris christie someone who did throw a lot of red. how is the rga different under the haslam regime? >> who the leader is matters but way more than that what matters is to be able to have a core of governors that are committed. and that's what helps you raise money as well. we're meeting up here today. the fact that we have 31 elected governors helps. that's how life works, right. so a lot more people are coming to our meetings. also people are attracted to success. if you think about it what republican governors can say is we're actually helping, i think, to change the brand. what's the rap on republicans right now?

well, you do well in white southern suburban areas. now you have republican governors who are winning in places like maryland and massachusetts and illinois. like really? i didn't think you could win. i thought that was the whole red/blue map. you have greg abbott in texas winning by ten points where republicans are supposed to be struggling. i think what we can do as republican governors is show that some of the stereotypes aren't true and we can win and govern in places that people didn't think we would. >> are there things you're excited about? >> if you're the governor of illinois you got a really hard job. the financial structure and pension structure and their state general fund it's really hard.

you talk to bruce and you realize his shirt sleeves are rolled up and we got to figure this out. we got to take $6 billion out of the budget. when you start to talk about cutting a government budget, in theory you might say, okay that's really good. it's hard because you're getting into constituencies and people that really care about that service or they really benefit one way or another from that service. it's hard. i think what you're going to see is some republican governors who are actually doing that. i personally am attracted to people making those hard calls financially and doing things to produce better education results. that's the challenge for all of us in the competitive world, how do we make certain that we have the work force that we need. you kind of heard that, blah blah blah, but it's really true. in states like ours that have historically been in the bottom of the 50 states when it came to education results, to start to change that is a big deal. last year when the national

assessment of educational progress, the one test that's given across the country so if you want to compare tests that's the one you do because it's given to fourth graders and eighth graders and it represents kids from every state. you can compare what results look like. tennessee was the fastest improving state in the country and made the biggest gain of any state ever. that was a big deal because you have an objective measure that says results are happening. >> you have three races this year and three red states. mississippi is an easy hold. >> governor brown will be glad to hear you say that. i'll tell him they don't need our money. >> that's right. in kentucky you've had the outgoing democratic governor pretty popular and was able to win re-election handily in 2011. democrats have co lessed.

they had a unity press conference last week and now you have a republican primary the first television ads of 2015 are running. the kentuckiens were bombarded last year and now they're getting bombarded again already. you have three republicans who are laying out some rationale for being able to do it. how nervous are you about the republican primary there making it harder to pick up that seat? >> kentucky is an interesting state. i think romney won by 8 or 10 there. i don't remember. he won. it wasn't a squeaker. yet, kentucky has controlled the governor's mansion except for a few years for the last 20 or 30 years. it is a state where it's kind of the anomaly of states in that region. >> like tennessee used to be. >> exactly. that's probably fair. yeah, when you talk to the mitch mcconnells of the world they go we want to do what you all did in terms of flipping the state house. i don't think primaries are bad.

i ran in a competitive -- in '10 a ran a competitive primary against our lieutenant governor and a sitting u.s. congressman who was popular. the democrats had the son of a very popular former governor. so we went through a hard year and a half long primary literally. our ads started earlier and lasted longer than the kentucky ones did. but the result was a good one. in the process you become better. you know the state more and people see you in the middle of a contest but i don't think that's all bad if you have good candidates. >> how likely do you think that is as a pick-up opportunity? greater than 50%? >> i don't know that yet. we obviously think -- it's three races. you have louisiana where jindal is going out and will have a competitive deal. mississippi where we have a

popular incumbent but kentucky we feel like is a red state that we'll have a real chance in. we'll put real focus into kentucky. >> right now republicans have 31 governorships which definitely helps with fundraising around everything else. it's the most republican governors since the 1920s. >> that's right. >> the next year the 2016, is actually pretty good for republicans. there aren't as many governor races. a big part of your job this year is recruiting and making sure the right candidates get in. if republicans currently control 31 governorships, talk about some of the races next year, it's a presidential year which is bad for senate republicans in places like illinois and pennsylvania but good for republicans. there's offensive opportunities in missouri west virginia, montana. what is the high water mark for republican governors? >> first of all you're right. in this job, even though you're chair for one year basically the first year of a cycle is to think through the next four

years. we have to be thinking about we have a lot of republicans like i did that came in in 2010 the first wave of the obama mid-term. you think of everything from suzanna martinez to nikki haley. when i came in my republican new governor's class was like -- i don't remember but it was a lot, almost 14 15 folks. ultimately you're trying to put a four-year plan so when that happens, everything from fundraising to governor support systems and all that is there for that race. '16 will be big. i don't know that number yet. when you're at 31 every pick-up is big. we were shocked to basically -- i shouldn't say shocked. we were pleasantly surprised to get to 31 this year because a lot of folks worked hard to do it. >> would have gotten to 32 if not for alaska. >> and who saw that coming.

two opponents teamed up together against shawn. we would have had governor parnell still there and been at 32. >> your dga counter part, the democrat association chair, steve bog, montana governor, in cycle next year he's up. do you think he's beatable? >> montana is a state that we should be able to compete in. if you look at the national map, montana is a state that republicans -- i think the other thing is we've shown we can win anywhere. when you win in massachusetts, illinois and maryland you go okay, we can compete anywhere. that will be a race that i'm certain we'll get rga resources. >> you talked about the tough decisions a lot of these governors are making, tough calls, budget cuts. that obviously has a negative effect on their approval rating. in north carolina we've seen that. in a lot of ways north carolina

has a similar profile to tennessee. >> right. >> poles show could be vulnerable next year. how much work can you do to help him to make sure he's well positioned? >> the answer is a lot. i think pat knows that he has a very serious race coming and he's preparing for that. in rj we're preparing to help him do that. pat did have to make some difficult budget decisions early. i think what people miss about government is this. they think you're deciding between good things and bad things when you're looking at a budget but you're not. you're deciding between good things and other good things. as a mayor i saw that. people are like why don't you build more sidewalks. sidewalks are great. why don't you pay school teachers more. that's great. why don't you build more parks downtown. yeah, that's great. why don't you do more to recruit business here. all that's great. why don't you pay more taxes. not so excited about it. that's obviously the challenge of government. it's about prioritizing.

you started talking about backgrounds and how people act in office. i think it's one of those things that background matters what you've done before. for me being a mayor was great preparation for being governor. it makes you more practical. there has never been a democrat or republican pothole, it's true. people want their garbage picked up and streets cleared of snow on days like this and make sure the drainage ditch behind their house works. all that stuff about service is really important and that's again one of the things you'll see from governors is we get it. people want government that works. >> do you think the next president will be a governor? >> if you look historically i think there's a good chance of that and there's a good argument to be made. listen, i'm rj chair -- >> you have to say it. >> you have to say it but we have several of our members.

we have 31 republican governors and anywhere from 3 to 30 are thinking about running for president. i can say 30 because i know i'm not. so we obviously have a lot of folks and it is a practical advantage. we had a program in nashville last night where former president bush 43 and clinton were together, just the two of them talking about things. you did realize they talk about how much each of them were influenced as president from being governor before. >> absolutely. what is the dynamic like at this point in the presidential cycle? you're having rj meetings. you're hitting them up to do fundraising for you. a lot of these guys are running for president doing their own fundraising. is it awkward sometimes in the meeting? >> it is remarkably not. you would think okay, these guys are running against each other. remember, they've been around each other. bobby was the rga chair two

years ago and i think maybe scott was the vice-chair then and then chris was the chair last year and bobby was his vice-chair. they've all been working together. obviously if you're in a competitive race you're in a competitive race and you know that. it's difficult. but they're folks who are used to that and they knew it was part of the deal when they signed up. fortunately for me they've said one of my first things is i know a lot of you have some other interests but i need you all to continue helping rga. they all said we get it we've been in your shoes and we'll help. >> great. we have a couple of questions from people in the audience. please send more. it's hashtag poll govs. how does your administration intend to implement common core? >> tennessee was one of the

winnest ofwin est ers of race to the top. my predssesser was one of the early adopters of a lot of pieces that came with that. tennessee, as i said earlier, we're actually the fastest improving state in the country in education results. a lot of that was about raising standards for us. the issue i tell people with tennessee was like this, prior to this when every state could set its own standard of what was proficient, we set our basketball goals at six feet and then we were so excited because everybody on the team could dunk. that was great but when we went to ten-foot goals it was helpful. the process of raising the standards has been really important for us in tennessee. common core, i've said before

it's really maybe one of the most damaged brands. the issue is this anything that anybody doesn't like about education, they've dumped it there. >> it's now obama core. >> if you think there's too much testing in schools that's common core. no it's not. common core is about state standards. if you think you don't like the way they're teaching world history, that's common core. no common core is about english and math. i had a woman who was convinced that we were teaching sex education to her kindergartner because of common core. no. but if enough people believe something about a brand, that's what it is. what we really did in tennessee was this. those standards have been in place for four years. we typically review standards every six years. we've said we're going to speed up our review of the standards process which we should do anyway. now we have four years of

history of teachers who have said i've been teaching that to sixth graders for four years. this is a good expectation and this is not. so we're reviewing all of our standards to see if they're right and we're taking the four years track record that we have. >> the next question from richard roemer, with the lack of federal action on transportation funding, what are your plans to increase funding in tennessee. >> really good question. obviously the federal funding really matters to states, but most states haven't changed their gas taxes either. i've said at some point in time while i'm governor we're going to have to address that but i don't want to do it until we have a long-term plan from our transportation department. we have a plan in terms of we have billions of backed up projects but a specific if we change the funding here's what we would do instead and then second a planning on the funding

side that it's not just a band-aid to get us two years down the road but a that you feel approach to how we'll do that. we're in a better situation. tennessee is one of the only states that doesn't use debt for our infrastructure funding. a lot of states are actually paying more in interest now than they're receiving in federal funds. >> because they locked in these -- >> right and they've been borrowing which was great as long as the federal money was coming. once that ended you were in trouble. fortunately we got in the habit of pay as you go on roads which is sometimes frustrating to some of the infrastructure people builders but it's been great policy for us. >> the republicans now control congress obviously and they control a lot of the transportation funding. what do you make of the republican congress's first 60 days on the job?

>> it's easy for governors to take swipes at congress. but our political situation is much easier than theirs. the senate is great but unless you get 60, if the ptsd other party you really-- president is the other party you can't do anything. they're out of control where they spend a lot of time positioning against each other. all of that being said you got to look at what the senate has tried to move and do in these 60 days versus last year and you can say there's been progress under leader mcconnell. >> do you watch dh funding and roll your eyes on that or is it politics as usual? >> i think one of the realities and i worry about it at the state level but it's true at the national level, there are a lot of people who make their living off of keeping things stirred up.

that's not good for the country and in the states we're able to fend off some of that in general the way things work around here. they're tell you they're frustrated by the way things are stirred up and it's a problem because it's a lot easier to stir something up than it is to solve the problem. >> tennessee has had a lot of success. i used the word establishment carefully. you have a tradition, howard baker, lamar alexander bob corker, why is that? why does tennessee support pragmatic republicans where some other southern states have gotten behind the fire brands who do raise money? >> i get asked that a lot. i'd love to say it's the quality of the candidates but the best

answer i have, tennessee, our state flag has three different stars on it because there's almost three parts of tennessee. the east where i'm from is mountainous. east basically fought with the north in the civil war. slavery was never an issue because nobody could plan anything. it's historically republican as in lincoln republican. middle tennessee is dominated by nashville which is a really thriving economy. west tennessee was traditionally dominated by the mississippi rivers, delta, farming agriculture, very democrat traditionally. but the point is that to win you couldn't just come out of one part of the state and bowl over everybody. you had to do well in all parts. so it forced you to be out listening to people. i think the more you're out, it's the good thing about democracy. the more you're campaigning and talking, what do people really

care about and you realize they don't care about a lot of stuff we spend a lot of time talking on. again, the three natures of tennessee forced you to go out and listen because well, when a ran, i'm from east tennessee and when i go to memphis they would be like, well, how do we know you're going to care about us. to win you better show them you understand their city and understanding their city means understanding their problems. >> governor, it's been so great to have you. thank you for the excellent questions. i appreciate the time. best of luck in your second term. >> thank you. thanks for having me. appreciate it. now we are going to quickly move on and bring in rick scott the governor of florida. [ applause ] thank you for coming. >> thank you.

>> welcome to frigid washington. >> i know. we have houses condos, we have hotels. you can move down there. it's warm. my hometown naples, is going to be i think 75 today. the beaches, it's clear, there's no rain. >> it's like 40 in tallahassee. is that hard going from naples to tallahassee? >> you don't go out as much. i don't like cold weather. i moved to florida because i don't like cold weather. i grew up in the midwest. that's way too cold for me. even texas was, i lived there for a little too. they have ice storms. this is unbelievable here though. >> it's normally not like this. thank you for being here. a quick introduction. you won by one percent, but a win is a win. >> didn't waste any dollars or any effort. >> you're starting your second term. you served in the united states navy before starting your very

successful business career. you joined a dallas firm as you noted, in 1987. at 34 you co-founded columbia hospital corporation with two partners that became columbia hca, eventually the largest private for profit healthcare company in america. in 2010 you kind of took on the republican establishment. people forget that that's part of your profile, ran against a sitting attorney general. >> everybody had endorsed. >> you took him on, you won. >> everybody poll said i would lose. >> and you won. now you're here and you're starting your second term. next week you're going to pennsylvania, making a lot of upcoming trips on jobs which is something you've always loved to talk about laser focus on jobs. tell me a little about this upcoming job story that you're planning and that's motivating you to go on the road.

>> my background is all about i grew up knowing jobs were important. i don't know my natural father. my mom went through divorce when i was born. she remarried a little while later so i have an adopted dad. we lived in public housing. my parents didn't have jobs often. i watched them struggle to put food on the table, pay the rent. i remember when my dad's car got repossessed. that's a tough life. my life, i always focused on jobs. i got married at 19. i've had a wonderful marriage. we have two daughters. i talk to them always about getting a job and working. so they love that. so in 2010 here's where our state wag. the the state of florida, this is one of the most beautiful places in the world to live. we had lost 832,000 jobs in four years. housing prices dropped almost in

half. unemployment had gone from 3.5 to 11.1%. the state borrowed $8.7 billion. $5.2 billion in state debt. owed the feds for unemployment debt. nothing was changing. so we had big budget deficits so i ran -- my whole campaign was, if you asked me the weather, i talked about jobs. to the shock of everybody, i won. if you think about a typical family, what do they care about, step one, i want a job. that's what they want. they want to work. they're not looking for another government program. they want to work. number two when they have children they're saying i want a good education system because for my child the shot at the american dream is education. number three, they want to live in a safe community. those are the three things i thought about every day. i walked in with a $4 billion budget deficit.

we've paid off debt. just to get a professional license when i started as governor it was 47 days in florida. it's now 1.7 days on average. what's happened is jobs have come back. 728,000 jobs. we have 88,000 people on unemployment today out of 20 million people. we're bigger than new york now. we have 279,000 job openings in florida. housing prices are way up. the state is packed. we've gone from a $4 billion budget deficit to a surplus. that's after paying off all that debt. i'm going after jobs. i'll be in pennsylvania. i love it when other governors want to raise taxes because it's good for us. the new governor of pennsylvania wants to raise taxes. all that's going to do is make those companies less competitive in a global economy.

we are competing globally whether we like it or not. when you think about what you buy, how many times do you say i'm only going to buy if it's made in pennsylvania or virginia or district of columbia. in america, you don't. we're competing. when other governors raise regulation, raise taxes, make it more difficult for business i want to get those jobs in florida. we're growing and we're going to keep doing it. i've done ten trade missions around the world and we're recruiting companies from around the united states. pennsylvania will be one of many states i go to. >> tom wolf, the new democratic governor of pennsylvania you just referred to, he called this a political stunt. he said the stagnant economy we inherited from a republican is not our doing. you didn't come here under our predecessor. what do you say when you get that kind of pushback? >> i've been recruiting companies. we've done in four years -- we've won over 400 competitive

projects. we've gotten companies like hertz to move to florida 700 jobs. lockheed martin, at&t, verizon, naval federal credit union. i've gone after jobs in every state. my biggest competitor has been rick perry. when i won my election in 2010 i met rick perry but didn't really know him. we met i think at an rga event. i said governor i'm going to tell everybody i'm going to kick your rear because you've been the gold standard for jobs. so i've gone after jobs. we went on national television and joked about who was the best state. i joke to him now that he's given up. i've tried to recruit companies from all over the united states and the world. i want florida to be the place where if you grew up in florida you want to live in florida and you know you can get a job and your kids can get a great education. >> how helpful was that playful competition with perry?

>> when i got started doing this, texas was the gold standard for job creation. they didn't lose jobs in the recession. florida lost all those jobs. so if i could be perceived to be competitive with texas, it was good for us. we went on squawk box, national television shows together. we did some forums together, and i just asked him, just say you're worried about us. that's all i want you to say. >> who's going to be your foil now? >> any governor who wants to raise taxes. so i'm appreciative of the governor of pennsylvania raising taxes. >> are you going to go to states with republican governors? >> i recruit from other states all the time. i think it's very difficult now for the northern states to -- for them to compete with us. put yourself in a position of a company. you've got to solve your customer needs. if we have a great work force which we do if we have no income tax for your employees, very low business tax, less regulation, faster permitting

do you think you can solve your customer needs faster in florida than other states? sure. a lot of people don't realize florida is the second biggest aviation aerospace state as far as number of jobs. the only state beating us is texas. we're third most technology companies in the united states. we are growing our businesses rapidly. on top of the fact that we're still a great tourist destination. 97 million tourists. a lot of people were coming down. last weekend i think was the busiest tourist weekend in the state of florida the president's weekend. so that's good. also we got 15 sea ports. with the expansion of the pan mall canal. we should be the shipping capital for the east coast. with the strike in the west coast it's good for us. in 2002 when they had it before

that was good for us. we're getting more shipping. >> what's a win? obviously every job is a win in its own way, but do you have a metric or a target of a want to bring 100,000 jobs to florida by the end of the second term? >> we did 728,000 the first term. >> you can verify that this was a job that was in pennsylvania or not necessarily from pennsylvania but -- >> you know what you do the things that get all the press are the big companies like hertz moving their corporate office, but the truth is most of the job creation is small companies. if you stop at duncan doughnuts or starbucks i go shake hands with people a lot and eat at restaurants where they're busy people are just moving their businesses and they're moving a two-person business or a five-person business because they're tired of more taxes, more regulation. they're tired of the weather, all of it. and then if they're doing

business in latin america they know we're the gate way to latin america. it's never one thing. i've been in business all my life and it's never one thing when you make a decision. it's a whole bunch of things put together. >> i want to talk a little about 2016. you're in a unique position. the governor of florida the former governor of florida likely to run. senator from florida likely to get into the race. >> mike huckabee. >> and ben carson lives there. >> everybody is making a good decision, move to florida. you could all move there, would be all right with me. >> obviously you're also close to rick perry as you mentioned. you're close to bobby jindal. >> yeah. >> what are you looking for in a 2016 candidate? >> i think the biggest issue we have as a country is the same as we had in florida when i got elected. it's all about jobs. we can't have a country that has higher corporate taxes more regulation and think we're going to get jobs. all these companies are

competing globally. think about it. we don't care where they're headquartered. so we've got to elect somebody that says my primary job is jobs. we're going to figure out how to limit the growth of government. they've got to figure out how to cut corporate taxes, cut individual taxes, reduce regulation. we can't have more and more and more regulations on our companies. take something as simple as obamacare and what we've done to our companies. you buy produce, right? you can buy florida produce or mexican produce. by the way by federal law you're supposed to know what you're buying. i'm sure all of you do that all the time. think about this they're not having to comply with obamacare in mexico, so do you think their prices are going to be cheaper than ours and where are the jobs going to be? i want all those jobs in the united states. in my case i want florida. so we have to have a president that says we have got to figure out how to compete globally.

if you've ever built a -- i built a company from scratch from me and a secretary to 285,000 employees. what you're trying to do all the time is keep costs as low as possible because you're always competing on costs. it's the same thing as our federal government and state government. i'm doing everything i can to make florida government as efficient and effective as possible. we have the lowest taxes per capita in the united states, the lowest number of state workers per capita in the united states right now. our federal government's got to do the same thing when we're competing against other countries because we're competing. and the jobs are going to go to other countries. i have daughters a a 3-year-old grandson and two 18-month-old grandsons. i want them to live in the united states, in my case florida. one does live in texas which governor perry reminds me of all the time. but we're competing. we've got to have a president that understands that we've got to fight this war on terror.

our citizens are getting beheaded beheaded. kiz citizens are getting killed and we've got to show up and fight terrorism. we've got to promote our country. i lived in texas for a while. the second day you live there you start bragging about the state. that's what i'm trying to get everybody in florida to do. we have to brag about our country and elect somebody who says we're the most exceptional place in the world to live. that's what i'm looking for in a candidate. as you know there are lots of people running or appear to be running. >> do you think you'll endorse when it matters? >> our primary -- march, right? so most likely but i'll worry about it down the road. >> there's talk in the legislature that the primary

date would be march 15th so in florida the winner could take all. do you think that's going to happen? >> like everything else? >> what's your relationship with jeb bush? do you talk to him, exchange ideas? >> yeah. here's what happens. i've known governor bush. i knew his brother better. we talk about education because that's what his focus has been. but reality is you talk to people that are having issues at the same time so rick perry, chris christie, bobby jindal. probably the two that i talk to the most is rick and bobby. there are southern states having similar issues. most of our issues are caused by a federal government that's trying to dictate how we spend our money. it's no different than when i first came in they had a high speed rail project and they wanted me to spend our money. i have a $4 billion budgeting deficit and they want me to

spend billions of dollars on a project they want done. >> marco rubio was in tallahassee before you and you were both elected in 2010 to your jobs. do you have a relationship with rubio? >> yeah. >> do you talk to him? >> i think he does a good job. he's been a good partner when we have federal issues. he's been a very good partner. >> there's been a public push to try to get him to stay in the senate. there's all these people in the presidential field, let's hold that florida senate seat. obviously it's his decision, but do you think he should stay in the senate? >> if he wants to be president, he needs to run for president. if you want to be president, no one is going to anoint you. if he wants to be president he's going to have to run. anybody from florida running for president is good for florida because they're going to talk about how great we're doing. i'm trying to get everybody in our state to brag.

if we can get those two to go brag about our state, that's a good start. >> are you still talking to perry even though he's no longer governor? >> yeah, i talked to him the other day. he's fun. rick is a ball to be with. he's got a lot of energy. he was out in california. >> you mentioned education in reference to governor bush. you obviously have done a lot on education. this week you talked about scaling back testing that there are too many tests and you're looking at some executive orders to reduce the number of tests kids have to take but also some legislative fixes. talk about this problem and your solution. >> our state has done really well. when i recruit companies they care about taxes. they care about regulation, they care about permitting. they care about work force. they also care about the education for the kids of their

workers. so from the first time i started calling on companies as governor they started asking me about education. here's where we are. our fourth graders are number two in the world in reading. our fourth and eighth graders have had the highest students gains of any large state in the country the last three years. we're the only state that's had student achievement gap narrowed between african-american and caucasian students in the united states. our low income students had the highest student gain last year. the national council for teacher quality, they do a survey every two years we're number one two times in a row. we have a lot to brag about in education. one thing, while we all believe in measurement, what we've done is we have put in a lot of tests. the way florida is set up is different than some states. we have districts by county. in some states like where i grew up in missouri there are lots of school districts. we have 67. so we have some state mandated

tests and some district mandated tests. last year as we're hearing about too much testing, i asked for a test investigation so we would put out what was actually going on in every district. so if you talk to teachers and i do a lot of roundtables with teachers they say the state government is mandating the this. it's not the state government. your district is mandating that. we are going to get rid of some of our testing. we're going to continue to focus on results which is what parents and students and teachers care about. some of the testing we'll get rid of. some will happen at the state level and some at the district level. our state's doing very well in education. in our universities, we have performance funding for universities tied basically to three things. what's it going to cost me do i get a job, do i make more money. that's what we're measuring. this year we'll have about $460

million in performance funding for our universities and our state colleges. >> you support common core, but you got permission and the state passed the florida standards. bill has um was just in here and said common core gets scape goated for every problem in education. everything is about common core now. can you talk about your thoughts. the governor was making a point that you're a business guy too and it's a very bad brand and that there are some underlying good things. >> a lot of common core was tied to our florida standards. so we said we're going to use -- we're going to use florida standards. we are picking and choosing what we like. we're continuing to make changes in what we have, but we're going to have our own standards. also a year ago we said that we passed legislation that said that the federal government is not going to data mine our students, and the curriculum decisions will be made at the district level.

close to where we have elected school board members in our counties and so at the local level they can make the decisions. but we're going to continue to have high standards and we're going to continue to try to out compete every other place in the world because we're competing with the whole world for jobs. so we're doing that but we're using our own standards. >> i want to switch to healthcare medicaid. after the 2012 election you kind of endorsed the idea of medicaid expansion. it didn't go anywhere. you're here in washington for meeting. >> i'm going to the white house dinner on sunday night. my whole table will be full of people trying to get me to do something. that's the way it works. >> what are the other wish list items? >> right now i think that's the biggest one. they've given up on high speed rail. here's where we were in our

state when i got elected. medicaid in our state had been growing at three times the general revenue for something like 20 years. it was not a small part of our budget. it was $20 billion out of $70 billion budget. growing at three times the general revenue is pretty tough so we passed legislation my first year and we got approved by the federal government my second year that said that our medicaid program would be -- a private company would be responsible for those recipients recipients, responsible for quality, access and taxpayers responsible for the cost. so now we have a medicaid program that we can afford and one that our recipients know they're going to get good care. two years ago, no different than my position on high speed rail. when they wanted to do high speed rail between orlando and tampa, i said as long as you want to pay all the money, do it.

but don't come and tell me how to spend my money. i'm responsible for the taxpayers of the state of florida. you want to spend federal money, spend federal money. i took the same position with regard to the medicaid. as long as the federal government wants to pay for it, do what they want to do but don't ask me to take it out of my budget. that's not happening in our state. we'll see. >> people could send questions to @politicoevents. >> if you give us a block grant -- by the way, our taxpayers pay for it. the taxpayers are paying for this just like in every other state. give us our money back and we'll run a medicaid program because we would like to take care of our citizens. we care about our citizens as much as anybody else does. >> the most substantive conservative criticism of medicaid expansion is the federal government is not going to be good for the money. even if they're good the first

three years -- >> you think with trillion dollar deficits would you do business with them sign a long-term contract with them? >> that's a jitlegitimate certain. that you're going to expand coverage and then they'll change the rules mid stream. >> so when i got elected, what was happening is the federal government would provide a grant to one of our agencies and it would be a two or three-year grant and then go away. everybody said aren't you going to keep it? well, i didn't start it. so we stopped our agencies from doing that without talking to the governor's office because why would we do that to our citizens, get people hooked on something that they didn't ask for. i meet a lot of people in the state. i travel the state pretty much every day. no one asks me for more government programs. no one says governor, you have to have another government program. maybe some people who make money off of it do. it's just like medicaid expansion, who's the most active

is the hospital industry. wonder why. >> we have a microphone for -- shocking. we have a microphone for audience questions and i want to take some if there are any. if there are any hands? >> do you want to move to florida? i've got realtors' names i've got everything. by the way, did you all see that ithaca, new york put on their tourist website that their weather was so bad, everybody should just go to florida? >> my fiance i think would love that with this temperature. i won't tell her that offer. during the '14 cycle you were attached and you talked about education a little bit, and you won. you were attacked i think more than almost any other governor on education and education reform and school choice -- >> on anything. i didn't pick the easiest state. i could have years ago moved to

a state that would have been easier but i didn't. >> do you have lessons that other folks, other governors, other republicans, can take from what you did in florida, even though it's a fairly red state it's still a swing state, especially in a presidential year, that they could take from your message and how you prevailed? >> we went after everybody. we've got a significant hispanic population. i do spend -- my spanish is not perfect, but i practice spanish every day. [ speaking spanish ] . i do spanish radio, spanish tv. we put a lot of effort into the spanish market. i personally believe everybody should vote for what we're doing. i don't talk to any families who say i don't care about jobs or education or public safety. we went out and we did events all over the state. we talked to everybody we could.

we did well with especially the hispanic vote, but we just went and talked to everybody. we did a lot of events. i'm fortunate that i had a wife that was willing also to travel and so she did events every day around the state. this is a person that when i won four years ago said that's great, i'm glad you won, remember you agreed that i never have to give a speech. we just worked every day and got our message out and stayed on message. we didn't have 15 messages. we talked about jobs and education and public safety. then when we got done with that it was jobs, education and public safety. >> is that the key for republicans nationally, too? the immigration question is obviously a thorny one that you can't not talk about at all but how do republicans nationally extrapolate from your success with hispanics? >> everyone cares about the same thing, everybody does. think about this.

people that have come to our country, what did they come here for? the dream. the dream that we all believe in. that's why they're here. i just went and talked to them about how we're going to do everything we can to give them the same opportunity that everybody else has. i think our state's the best melting pot in the country, maybe in the world. we have 300 languages spoken in our state. we have people from all over the world living in florida. we've got -- if you look at especially the orlando area we've got a lot of -- tampa would be second a lot of puerto ricans. if you look especially at broward and miami-dade you have a lot of people from central america, south america. they feel connected with our state. we're a melting pot and we like all the culture in our state. i think the biggest thing that we have to do is go talk about what people care about. they care about jobs. that's the biggest thing.

they care about jobs. everybody wants this economy to turn around. everybody wants this economy to turn around. what we've got to do we've got to tell our story about why our beliefs help everybody, which i believe they do. i'm a republican. my job is to take care of families like mine growing up that struggled to put food on the table, struggled to keep their car, struggled to pay the rent or the mortgage. if those individuals do well, everybody does well. if they can get a job, there's less government needs there's more public safety everything is better for everybody. >> you mentioned the hispanic vote. i want to take more questions in a minute. cuba has been in the news recently because of president obama's move. nancy pelosi is there this week during the congress at recess. you've opposed relaxing the embargo. is it frustrating to see all these national democrats and stuff travel to cuba when there

are still human rights abuses? >> the other countries that don't have transactions, it hasn't changed the castro brothers at all. gosh, they're still there. they still have political prisoners. there's still no freedom of speech. the castro brothers are in the thick of venezuela, killing peaceful protestors. the only way we're going to get democracy in my belief -- and i listened to the ladies in white that live in cuba that says the only way to do it is to keep the embargo, the trade sanctions. if i was going to do a trade mission, we went to ten countries. brazil, my biggest trading partner, there's probably business there. colombia a lot of business. panama spain england canada japan, france, do air shows, that's where we're getting jobs, pennsylvania. >> there's a lot of republicans now who say let's get rid of the

embargo. it didn't work. do you think they just don't understand. why do you think there has been a shift in public opinion about the embargo nationally and in florida? >> i wouldn't -- i'm not much of a pundit. i know what i believe, but i don't know why -- >> do you think a republican could win florida not supporting the embargo in 2016? >> i don't know. i think the biggest issue in our state is who's going to focus on jobs. i think what i'm looking for which i think most people are looking for, let's get our economy going. let's defend our country from terrorism. let's fix obamacare. let's have somebody that brags about our country. we have an exceptional country. let's brag about it. let's don't elect somebody who's going to apologize. >> we have a question i think. >> good morning, governor.

you already talked about performance funding for your state colleges and universities. you also speer-headed a $10,000 bachelor's degree in the state of florida. can you talk a little bit further about the nexus of higher education and economic development, particularly having the access or the access for students in your state to obtain and upgrade their skills. >> sure. i'm probably older than most people in this room. when i went to junior college my first year out of high school, i think it was $200 either a semester or a year. the university was expensive. for 15 hours, you take 21 hours if you wanted, it was $255. no fees, books weren't very expensive. so if you want to give people a shot at the dream of america, make education more affordable. why does it have to cost so

much? if you think about in business your expectation is that things can get cheaper and the value equation gets better. how does that happen with education? how does it cost this? i challenged all of our state colleges. we have 28 state colleges. 23 have some four-year degrees. i said can you do a degree for $10,000? they all did it all the ones that have four-year degrees. this year we're going to expand that. total for four years was $10,000. this year we're going to expand it to get more stem degrees there. at our universities, they were raising tuition when i came in at 15-plus percent a year 15-plus percent a year. if you have lots of money, it didn't matter. but if you don't have a lot of money, you don't want to borrow thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars then how do you pay for it?

finally my third year -- my fourth year, we got that stopped. so it allowed the cost of a pre-paid plan, the four years before you could buy a prepaid plan for a university for a newborn for $100 a month for 18 years. or $14,000 up-front. by the time i got it stopped it was $54,000 up-front or $350 a month. now, think about you have two kids. how many people can spend 700 bucks a month after tax? you can't do it. so who's it hurting? it's hurting the poorest families. and we want our kids to get degrees. the other thing we did is we said we want them to get degrees in areas where there's jobs. there's a lot of jobs in our state. 279 job openings. a lot in the stem areas. we recruited aviation aerospace, and all these other stem grads. then we -- my third year in office we started the performance funding.

20 million. but last year was 200 million. this year will be 460. basically tied the three things. really three things. what's it cost for a degree? and when you think about that i care about degrees. so part of it's tuition. part of it's how fast you get through. but make people start thinking about -- because think about when you were going to school. remember how hard it was to get the classes you needed? yeah. why should -- you're the darn customer. if a retail business like that did that to you you'd stop going there. then we're trying to also get the textbook costs down. i talked to somebody the other day, one textbook cost $500 for a freshman class. $500. that's crazy. so we're focused on tuition but we're really focused on what's it cost to get a degree. do you get a job. i asked our universities, i said when i came in, give me all the surveys you do of employers

so -- i'm sure you know where all the jobs are. you know how many i got back? zero. zero. in business you're doing customer surveys all the darn time. so it's already changed the conversation now. they're all thinking about how do we get people through here faster. where are the jobs? how much are people going to make? it's changed the conversation. and that's good for everybody in our state. >> we're wrapping up here but i wanted to ask one last question. jeb bush used to talk about big hairy audacious goals. you have this kind of tableau ahead of you four years. you've just won this election. what are your big hairy audacious goals for the second term? >> the biggest goal i have is by the time i get out of office we will become the number one place in the world to get a job. and if we are the number one place in the world to get a job here's what happens. it's already happened, what we've done so far. we have record funding for k-12 education, record funding for universities, record funding for

state colleges record funding for transportation. and we continue -- and we have the lowest taxes per capita in the country. so it's all tied to making our state the place where people say if i'm going to build a business i'm going to build it before i think about anyplace else. because i know i can compete globally better in florida than anyplace in the world. that's my goal. at the end of eight years, and when i finish, that's what people are going to say. florida is the absolutely best place to get a job in the world. >> governor rick scott, thank you so much for being here. really appreciate it. >> thanks a lot. >> thanks for doing this. [ applause ] >> this conference hosted by politico also included a conversation with first-term governor gina rah mundo of rhode island. she talked about the state's economy and ideas to create jobs. her interview's followed by a

conversation with virginia governor terry mcauliffe, who talked about how the choices being made in washington, d.c. were affecting his state. this is an hour. >> governor gina raymondo of rhode island. governor, thank you so much for joining us for this afternoontion session. >> you are one of a dwindling number of democratic governors. but you ran on a reform platform that alienated some traditional democratic constituencies. is that a recipe that more democrats should be following at the state level to try to get the number of democratic governors up? >> i don't know if that's the recipe. the theme of my campaign and i think the reason that i won is that i was relentlessly focused on economic development and job creation and i think every

advertisement that my campaign did was focused on that. and that was the bet that we made. but the work i had done around pension reform which was difficult, certainly did alienate some of the public sector labor unions. and that made it difficult in the primary. what i said is it's time for the governor who's got the courage to take on the tough issues. and you know, get things done. and i think i was able to convince people that i would take that same courage that i used to get through the pension to fixing an ailing economy. >> there's an increasing tension within the democratic party particularly as relates to teachers' unions and some of the arne duncan's proposals. there's a large number of democrats that are reform democrats that feel as if teacher tenure and charter schools and other education innovations aren't really necessary. it's another group that tends to support the union position, which is that a lot of this is teacher bashing. is that something democrats are going to have to make a choice

about going forward? not just with teachers unions but also with some of the very powerful public sector unions. the kind you took on when you were treasurer. >> democrats and all public servants just need to be willing to be honest about the reality. if we have schools that aren't working and aren't educating our kids well and the results aren't what they need to be we need to face the facts and fix them. if that means making some changes that teachers unions aren't comfortable with i think democrats have to have the courage to do that. unfortunately, all this stuff quickly gets into an us versus them, which i don't find to be productive. i think we ought to treat teachers like professionals that they are, give them the support they need, and then hold them accountable. and every teacher i know -- i have two kids in public school. every teacher i know wants to be held accountable. every teacher i know wants to be treated like a professional. and as a mom i sure know i want my kids to be well educated. >> i reviewed a pourpt presentation you that had

presented to a large number of rhode island leaders about the rather daunting task ahead for the next four years. growing budget gap projected over the next four years. combined with a stagnating economy, 47th in unemployment among the 50 states. lack of investment in job creation. the conclusion is obviously you have to invest more in job creation. how are you going to do that with a budget gap? >> that's the challenge. you asked the question. i tell people that i really have to thread the needle on this. i'm facing a huge budget deficit. rhode island, for those of you to give you a sense of what we're dealing with, rhode island has one of the weakest economies in the nation. which it might be a surprise to you because we're nestled between new york and boston. we have great amazing universities. we ought to be a thriving economy, but we're not. we were crushed when the

manufacturing sector left, and we didn't reposition ourselves for high-growth industries. so i'm in the position where we are facing a $200 million shortfall. the natural instinct would be to cut and there has to be some cuts, except you can't just cut. you can't cut your way to prosperity or job creation. we have to cut in the areas where we spend too much or that aren't job creating. and then reallocate that money to job training, skill development, economic incentives for businesses. and that is exactly the task before me. but those are tough choices. you have to look at medicare for example. rhode island spends the most in the country per enrolle on medicaid. not doing a great job. taking care of the most vulnerable. but spending money doing it. you've got to find some money there and then invest in

building roads and bridges and schools. skill development to fundamentally get people back to work. >> earlier on the earlier schedule we were going to be joined by governor nixon of missouri. and talking to some of his staff, their plan for the future is the return of american manufacturing. they're convinced that missouri's going to be a big beneficiary of that. so many manufacturing jobs have been lost in rhode island. is that realistic? could rhode island benefit from a rebirth of american manufacturing, or is it smarter to go with the sort of knowledge economy direction like boston and new york tend to be going? >> i think you have to do both. you have to do both. what we have to do like every state, we have to figure out what we can be really good at. and manufacturing is a piece of that. manufacturing today is the knowledge economy also.

i always say it's not my dad's manufacturing. my dad -- once upon a time rhode island was the mecca of jewelry manufacturing. spydell, bulova watch, tiffany. that's what we did in rhode island. we made beautiful jewelry and beautiful watches. and that's all gone. my dad worked forever at the bulova watch factory. that factory went away and the jobs went away. that manufacturing is gone forever. but new manufacturing, high skill, high tech, knowledge-based manufacturing, if you will, is coming back to america. and rhode island is absolutely poised to get its fair share of that manufacturing in areas of excellence like marine technology. i believe rhode island ought to be the boat-building capital of the world. we have newport. we have bristol. we want to go where we can be great and build upon our strengths and yeah build some advanced manufacturing. >> now