zandy discusses rising deficits and market volatility. and we are live in little rock, arkansas for the next stop on the c-span bus 50 capitals tour with arkansas's governor asa hutchison. "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. pennsylvania governor tom wolf recently gave his annual budget address at the state capitol in harrisburg. he also discussed his legislative priorities including education investment, work force development, and combatting the opioid epidemic. this is fwhints. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you very much. lieutenant governor stack, speaker, president, leader corman, leader costa, members of the general assembly, invited

guests, friends, family and most importantly, my fellow pennsylvania pennsylvanians. [ applause ] okay. before i begin, i want to take a moment, a moment, to congratulate the philadelphia eagles, the city of philadelphia, but all of us, all of us in pennsylvania. i know just like we are sometimes split between parties, we are also split between eagles

and steelers here in the commonwealth. but you know what? we are all fans of pennsylvania and the eagles and their devoted fans deserve this moment, and we should all be happy to share it. we now have seven super bowl rings in pennsylvania. and that is truly something we can be proud of, so fly eagles fly. so just like so many of us have pride in the eagles, the story of the commonwealth of pennsylvania has always been a story about pride. we pennsylvanians have always been proud of the work we do. proud of the industries we have built. proud of the communities we grow up in and raise our kids in. proud of the traditions we pass down through the generations. but by the time i took this

office three years ago, the economy had changed and the commonwealth we loved was headed in the wrong direction. when i stood outside this building on that tuesday afternoon and took the oath of office as pennsylvania's governor, i talked about what made our commonwealth a place we are all so proud to be from. a place where we build things. a place where you can find work that puts food on the table and allows you to save up for college or retirement. a place where you can watch your kids grow up, find jobs of their own, maybe even start a business some day and sign the other side of a paycheck. i believed then as i believe now that the people of pennsylvania have what it takes to restore those values and build our prosperity. what was sang tanding in our wa wasn't our work ethic or entrepreneurial spirit but a kind of political paralysis. a status quo in which too often, politicians in harrisburg simply couldn't find a way to make the tough decisions and smart investments we would need to get back on track.

i promised i would challenge that status quo here in harrisburg. that's what i have tried to do for the last three years. sometimes that's meant challenging the legislature to step out of its comfort zone. sometimes we have worked our way to a compromise. sometimes i have been forced to move forward on my own. we still have a lot of work to do but taking on the status quo here in harrisburg and doing that, we have already begun to write a new story for our commonwealth. it's not a story about a past we will never get back. it's a story about a brighter future that we can all build together, if we can muster up the political will to do it. so today, i'm here to challenge you to join me in writing the next chapter of that proud pennsylvania story. where else could that story of pennsylvania's future begin than in our schools? long before i was governor, i was a parent. i knew that nothing is more important than being able to send your child to a great school, to get that child a

great education. i was also a business owner who knew that nothing is more important than being able to find qualified employees. so i knew we couldn't bring back our economy until we brought back our public education system. i knew that businesses would not invest in pennsylvania until pennsylvania invested in its schools. that's why the first thing i did when i got to harrisburg was draw a line in the sand on education. over the last three years, we have invested in our schools and reversed the billion dollars in cuts that were made under the previous administration, cuts that had led to larger class sizes, mass layoffs of educators, cuts to programs like full day kindergarten. we have already begun to see these investments pay off. today, we have nearly 100,000 students enrolled in full day kindergarten. we have increased the number of kids able to attend pre-kindergarten by nearly half. our high school graduation rate is more than 86%, making us a national leader.

we are second in the nation in s.t.e.m. education, preparing our children for jobs of tomorrow. and we have increased the number of career and technical education students earning industry-recognized certificates by nearly 33%, preparing them for the jobs our employers are trying to fill right now. rebuilding our schools is the beginning of rebuilding our economy. but it's just the beginning. for three years now, we have been working to create more jobs that pay in every corner of our state. since i took office, pennsylvania has gained nearly 180,000 jobs. in the last year, we led our region in job growth. many of these jobs are from direct investment by the commonwealth. for example, the investments we have made in the shell cracker plant, the port of philadelphia, the online retailer in paoli are on pace to create more than 15,000 jobs. the work force development partnerships we forged are on pace to train thousands of

workers for jobs that are sitting open right now. over the last three years, we have repaired or rebuilt 1,600 bridges and more than 18,000 miles of roadways. over the next decade, we are going to invest $2 billion more in rebuilding roads, highways and bridges across our commonwealth so that our people can get to work and our products can get to market. it's for these reasons i think a company like amazon is considering philadelphia or pittsburgh as the location for its second headquarters. businesses don't invest in states that don't invest in education, in infrastructure or job training. we are doing all these things and i'm hopeful that amazon will come here, build here, and expand here. how about it. [ applause ] meanwhile, we have gotten rid of burdensome taxes like the capital stock and franchise tax.

we have cut red tape that made it harder to build a small business and streamlined the services we offer so the government can be an ally, not an obstacle for entrepreneurs looking to get started right here in pennsylvania. in fact, this week, we followed through on a promise i made last year by launching a one-stop shop for businesses and business owners to access state services. there's a lot more to do, from expanding access to the internet to every corner of the commonwealth to a new work force program called p.a. smart that will consolidate our work force development efforts into yet another one-stop shop. speaking of our work force, in this year's budget, i'm proposing another major step forward. a significant investment in career and technical education to help make pennsylvania a better place to learn, better place to work, and better place to do business.

developing a work force that can compete and win in the 21st century economy is the single best way to help pennsylvania businesses grow, and attract new businesses to our commonwealth. it's also the single best thing we can do to help more of our people find better jobs, not just tomorrow, but today. indeed, these aren't just jobs. they are careers. everything from welding and machining to coding and advanced manufacturing. careers that can sustain families and enrich communities. these careers aren't reserved for people with four-year degrees. anyone in our state who is willing to put in an honest day's work deserves a shot to make a good living. by investing in these programs, we can give them a chance to gain the skills they need to do it. for example, at lcr imbedded systems in norristown, there's a man named michael rosenberg. he's here today, right? where are you? michael, there you are. okay. stand up. michael's here.

thank you for being here. he works on the manufacturing line, he services a major contract. eight years ago, i don't want to get personal here, but eight years ago he would never have expected to be in that high level advanced manufacturing position. he did not have a college degree. he was working in the plant as a janitor, right? but michael was a great employee, smart guy, who took the work he did to heart no matter what it was, and he wanted to do more than just collect a paycheck. he wanted to build a career making things right here in pennsylvania. so thanks to a work force training program through the department of community and economic development, he was able to get additional training at montgomery county community college and with his new skills, he was able to move up to the assembly floor. then he got promoted again to the machine shop. here's a guy who had no formal experience in machine shop work until he got this additional training. now he's head of the entire

machine shop at lcr. he's a role model to his fellow employees. michael is making more money and making an even greater contribution not just to his family and to his employer but to the whole community. there should be a place in pennsylvania's future for people like michael. there should be a place in pennsylvania's future for anyone willing to work hard to make a better life. i hope you are ready to work with me to make that happen. i'm hopeful because over the last three years we have begun to see progress in changing the way things work around here. i'm also well aware that sometimes progress doesn't come without an occasional push. when i took office as governor, i knew i had to set a new tone in harrisburg. that's why i banned anyone from my administration from taking gifts from lobbyists. i got rid of pay-to-play contracting. i refused to take a salary or

pension. i pay for my own health insurance. but the people of pennsylvania had a right to expect much more from their government. even though they elected a democratic govern j iic governo republican legislature, they expected us to find ways to work together for pennsylvania and they expected us to deliver results. it's always been -- yeah. thank you. [ applause ] it has always been and it always will be my privilege to work with the legislature. when we found ways to do that, we have been able to get a lot of things done for the people of pennsylvania. that's how we expanded our response to the opioid crisis. arming law enforcement with the tools they need to fight this epidemic on the front lines and helping thousands of people struggling with addiction to get the access to treatment that could save their lives. working together, we have reduced the prison population while lowering pennsylvania's crime rates. despite this, our cities still face issues. great. yeah.

despite this, our cities still face issues of violence. we need to work together, legislators, the administration, attorney general shapiro, to make our cities and communities safer so violence is never an obstacle to opportunity. working together is how we enacted a fair funding formula in our education system that takes politics out of the school funding decision and makes sure your zip code doesn't determine what kind of education you can get. working together is how we solved one of the thorniest problems in harrisburg, reforming our pension system, in a way that's fair to our workers and fair to our taxpayers so that we can stop wasting so much money on wall street fees, meet our obligations and start paying down our debt. that's how we finally made medical marijuana legal so our patients in our state can get access to the medicine they need

to live without pain. and that's how at long, long last we reformed our liquor system. when some in the legislature haven't mustered up the political will to work with me, i have no problem doing it on my own. whether it's expanding medicaid to cover 715,000 pennsylvanians and cutting our uninsured rate to the lowest it's ever been, expanding opportunities for seniors to stay in their homes while they can get the care they need as they age, or streamlining agencies and state government. i have done things on my own to help the people of pennsylvania. but harrisburg works better and pennsylvania works better when we all work together to make it work for everyone. when it comes to this year's budget, working together should be easier than in years past. because after decades of neglect and years of crisis, we have

finally begun to tame the fiscal beast that haunts harrisburg. no one here needs reminding that harrisburg's chronic inability to deal with that crisis has long been the most visible symbol of what's wrong with our state's government. i'm proud that we have begun to change that story. some of the work i have been able to do from the governor's office. took a business owner's approach to our budget and was able to cut lots of money, $2 billion, by streamlining our bureaucracy. saving pennsylvanians another $700 million by cracking down on fraud and abuse. some of the work we have been able to do together like making full pension payments, reforming our criminal justice system to reduce our prison population and lowering health care costs. because we have begun to take a new approach to our budget, i can come before you today with a budget that makes the investments we need to continue our progress without any tax increases on pennsylvania's families.

i'm going to keep doing whatever i can do to reduce costs and streamline government, but we can do so much more to improve our fiscal future if we work together. that brings me to the tax. pennsylvania is one of the states fortunate enough to have abundant natural gas resources yet we are the only state without a severance tax. texas, oklahoma, louisiana, are bringing in billions of dollars from the oil and gas industries. that money is going to fix roads, build schools and keep taxes low. let's understand exactly what a severance tax is. it's a tax paid by people mostly outside of pennsylvania to use our natural resources. by failing to put in place this common sense tax, we are actually just paying the other states' taxes like when we fill up our cars or heat our homes, we are paying for alaska's schools or texas' roads.

i don't know about you, but i don't remember ever getting a thank you note from any of the taxpayers in texas or alaska. pennsylvania is blowing most other states out of the water. by passing a severance tax, we could also join them by bringing billions of dollars into our own coffers. ask the oil and gas companies to pay their fair share for extracting pennsylvania's resources and we can build a brighter future for pennsylvania. this is only hard if we choose to make it hard. so why isn't this done? well, the truth is, as rich as our commonwealth is in some natural resources, special interests have put political courage in short supply. i get it. the oil and gas industry are powerful. but in the time i have been here, i have seen people in this

legislatur legislature, even people i disagree with about pretty much everything set politics aside to do what's right. i believe you have it in you to do that again. pennsylvania's counting on you to do it again so today, i'm not just asking you, but challenging you to do the right thing, pass a severance tax this year so that we can keep making investments that will grow our economy, keep making progress on the issues pennsylvanians care about and keep writing the proud story of a brighter future for pennsylvania. after all, the pennsylvania we are all so proud of, the place where you could work hard and earn a good living, raise your family in a strong community, watch your kids find opportunity of their own, that wasn't magically bestowed upon us. it was built by generations of people who did hard things together. now it's our turn. it's our turn to make the tough

decisions with courage and conviction. it's our turn to invest in new technologies, to inspire new discoveries and incubate new industries. it's our turn to build a stronger and fairer economy, a healthier set of -- and safer set of communities and new opportunities for the next generation. it's our turn to finish writing the next chapter in this story of this great commonwealth. i have never been more proud to be a pennsylvanian. i have never been more confident of our people. i have never been more hopeful of our future. if you feel the same way, please consider this proposal an invitation to join me in building that future together. thank you very much. [ cheers and applause ]

. c-span history series landmark cases returns to look at 12 new supreme court cases. each week, historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind these significant supreme court decisions. beginning monday, february 26th, live at 9:00 p.m. eastern, to help you follow all 12 case, we have a companion guide written by veteran supreme court journalist tony mauro. the book costs $8.95 plus shipping and handling, go to