can to help each other through this difficult time. we are pleased to be joined by the governor of delaware as well. jack, welcome. >> i want to thank governor has a barber for hosting us. i was struck several years ago for a review by everyone who came down to help in the aftermath of katrina and the message that they brought back. being here with other governors and seeing the governors come together to try to rebuild a country, not exactly the same work they did with so many volunteers right here in louisiana and mississippi, but this is an important place for all of us to be. we talked about the stimulus act. i want to give you one quick example. in delaware, we have been hit hard by the economy, and specifically we have to car plants, one chrysler and one general motors.

the chrysler plant closed in december and the general motors plant is closing this month. we also have a big amtrak facility where the repair locomotives and passenger cars. just about a week ago i was at one of the amtrak facilities. amtrak got a lot of money to rebuild cars and refurbish cars. it allowed amtrak to hire 52 additional people in delaware. among those 52 people were a number of folks who previously had been at general motors or at chrysler. it is one thing to talk about these policies at a 30,000 foot level, and something different to be at the ground level and meet the people whose lives are different as a result of these initiatives. we are certainly grateful in delaware. i look forward to learning what we can and bring good ideas back to delaware.

>> we will be glad to take any questions. >> can you tell us your opinion about whether the stimulus has been helpful in mississippi? >> it actually resulted in mississippi having a record budget for this fiscal year. we will spend more money this fiscal year than we have ever spent any year in the history of mississippi. we would like to have had more latitude in how to spend that money. in congress's wisdom, that pushed most of the money toward education and medicaid. that results and as having this peculiar position. k-12 this fiscal year will be 7.2% higher than any other year in history of the state, yet most a departments and agencies are taking 5% cuts in their spending.

all of education will receive a record appropriations. that was the direction that the congress wanted to go. frankly, we would have liked to not increase at spending quite so much, and moved some of that money to other departments. education is our top priority, and we spend about 63% of the state budget on it, so we are in sync that this should be the first priority. however, every governor would like to have had a little more latitude in how to spend it. >> from our standpoint, the stimulus has prevented us from having to take cuts or make cuts in vital services that people depend on, especially in these hard economic times. there's more demand on services from state governments all across the country. it has been able to fill those voids for us. most of the seamless money will

stop in 2011. all of us will be working on our 2011 budgets come this fall. when we get through that cycle, and the following years it becomes more challenging if it has not turned around. those are the concerns we have right now. without the flexibility, all your doing is pushing out some challenges that might be a little daunting. without it, i do not know what would have done in some of the states. >> do you all think there needs to be more, another stimulus? >> personally, i do not think there is another appetite for it. i think this correction has to be made internally within each state. in west virginia, there is not an appetite right now. we are going to work ourselves through this. that is the strength of this country. it is each one of our strengths,

collectively. >> i agree with what my colleagues have said. we certainly welcome the budgetary relief. in vermont, one for the car population is on medicaid. -- one-fourth of our population is on medicaid. we have to restructure our economy so that we are ready to get along without these federal resources and a couple of years. secondly, haley made an excellent point. i appear before the house appropriations committee last year, and governors always want more flexibility, because the priorities are different from state to state. it is a lot more successful if we could deploy those dollars without having some of the specific requirements that the congress imposed. in terms of medicaid support, education support, infrastructure help to repair

roads, bridges, rails, and culverts, i come from a part of a country where our infrastructure is aging, and we certainly need that help. we would like more flexibility. i am joined by the governor of the great state of montana, governor schweitzer. >> put me down for no. joe is right. we are up on a very high peak that we are going to have to get down off of when the stimulus money runs out. pushing that of another year or two years is not the answer. we need to go on and start making the kind of changes these guys talk about sooner rather than later. >> you are hearing in a bipartisan fashion.

>> the governor's -- [applause] >> i will be more authorized when we chat about it later today. it is fair to say that governors share the concerns that the president and others have articulate about the need to ensure quality health care for all the people of our great country. frankly, governors have been in the forefront of providing leadership in this area. we have a program called renown care in vermont where we have reduced the uninsured rate substantially. it is a public-private partnership. there have been a lot of other innovations all across the country as well.

i think the governors would all agree that what we do not want from the federal government is unfunded mandates. we are facing fiscal and economic challenges we have described already this morning, and we cannot have the congress impose requirements that we are forced to absorb beyond our capacity to do so. we want to work with the congress, with the administration. a number of us have had many meetings with both branches of the federal government, and i hope we can find a way to get through this challenge, to meet the objectives that everybody shares without imposing new burdens on the states. >> are these things that would be good for the states in your estimation, or are there problems? >> we have not taken any specific positions on bills that have come out of individual committees in the congress. this is a challenging issue, not

only physically and economically, but politically, to be honest. we will talk about it over the next couple of days and may or may not collectively have some specific statements on these initiatives. >> that me just say that one of the things we all have in common is that the most normal part of our society is working people. if you are old enough, you have some form of health care. if you are young enough, you have it, and if you are a criminal, you have it. the people who do not have a, the most vulnerable, or the working people. we have to find a way to protect working people of america. i think you will see a lot of us concerned about how much of burton we are going to except. on one hand you can identify it that we have a problem in medicare and medicaid, and on

the other hand burden us with the cost of paying for additional health care. i think you will see some movement toward preventive care , personal responsibility, rewards, and incentives. we are hoping it moves in that direction. we are hearing the comments coming from washington. we will be very much engaged, and later on this afternoon you will see a directive that will put nga right at the forefront of this. >> with the current situation with the economy, for small businesses to try, there have to be incentives out there. do you have a plan to help businesses, it inside them to hire more people, to do more things to grow, because the government cannot make small business grow without inciting them some way with tax cuts or

some kind of revenue in that fashion. small businesses are not looking for a handout, in just a hand up. >> in most of our states, small- businesses employ the majority of people. new jobs created are most often created by small businesses. we have state programs in which small businesses can participate, but is really on a state-by-state basis. the federal government has a small business illustration. one of the things you are hearing us say we will work hard on is to help employers of small businesses have a better chance to get health insurance without breaking the small businesses or breaking the state governments. everybody would like to improve and knows we need to improve health care, but we are not

going to do it at the cost of making small businesses less likely to survive. >> governor schweitzer is not a shy fellow. you have any thoughts on this topic? >> you are asking questions about what we think about health care bill, but you cannot predict what the health care bill is going to look like. that is like watching a load of cattle boat to the slaughterhouse and predicting what the state is going to taste like. the same thing is happening to this bill. what has arrived at the senate is going to look a lot different when it comes out of the senate. from montana's perspective, the governors are asking what our opinion is on things. we function as a consensus. it takes all 50 governors to agree on something. you might imagine mississippi and montana will not agree on everything. i can tell you this.

if the plan to allow the healthcare plan to be paid for in part needs to have the state's bonds to pay for it, the outfit that prints the money is turning to us and saying you can borrow. it does not work that way. that is the weight the government reduce the federal government has been treating the states. they need to figure out a way to pay for what they are offering, not tell the states to pay for their mistakes. >> on the question of small business -- i do not have a cattle analogy. this is one place where nga can be so useful. it is probably one of the most important questions we face. we all have a fundamental responsibility to get our economy going again. the way we are addressing it in delaware is trying to understand what is standing in a way of these businesses now.

one thing is their inability to access credit in an affordable way. we came up with the program at our strategic fund to allow $50 million of borrowing within the state. it is buying down to 0% the interest rate that companies -- these are good companies at a been around for a least three years and have good standing at the banks. the interest-rate -- up to $12,500 a year of interest. a number of businesses in delaware will be able to keep two or three employees or hire an additional one because of this program. these days, with this economy, if we have a company that is going from 23 to 27 employees are from 7 to 11, that is a big deal. we are spending as much time helping those kinds of companies as we are looking at the biggest po