Gov. Paul LePage, of Maine - Gov. Paul LePage's 2017 State of the State Address lyrics

Mr. President, Madam Speaker, members of the 128th Legislature, distinguished guests, and my fellow Maine citizens: Let me begin by first recognizing a few individuals -- to my lovely wife and my children. Please stand. I would not be here tonight without you. Love you. To the First Lady, you have made this state very very proud to have you as our First Lady. I do not know if she made it, but invited is Allison Salsbury of Bar Harbor. She was supposed to be here with her daughter Kathy and I'm not sure if she's here, but the reason she's invited this evening is Allison and I -- she's a widowed lady -- Allison and I became pen pals way back in early 2011, when I first became governor. We write at least -- well, she writes me at least once a week -- I am three letters behind Allison, I apologize. I will get those written here shortly. She really truly understands the plight of the Maine elderly. And she has been through nursing homes, she's been through rehab, she's been a lady that is just absolutely fantastic. And I think it's very important. I wish everybody could have the opportunity to meet an elderly like Allison Salsbury. To Technical Sgt. Christopher Ludden and the military here this evening. Thank you for your courageous service to our state and to our nation. And I believe all military veterans and their families deserve a round of applause. By the way before I go any further if you heard me on the radio this morning I had a challenge this $200 on a table. So for Ric and George -- WVOM -- you owe me 200 bucks. And it's going to go to Travis Mills Foundation. Thank you very much. Now to business. I am here tonight to speak to the Maine people. Our economy and our way of life is under attack. Older Mainers who have worked their entire lives are losing their homes because of tax and utility bills and many local governments condone it. Sadly, Maine Municipal Association defends it. The taxes Mainers have paid all their lives fund organizations that throw them out on the street. It has to stop. We owe it to our elderly to protect them in their waning years. They have protected us. We grew up under 'em. We need to protect the elderly of the state of Maine. We must also protect younger Mainers. Our families are losing good-paying jobs. It's all because a very faulty ideology. Maine was once renowned for its rugged individualism. Liberals are now trying to transform our state into a socialist utopia. Utopia is an ideology. No amount of taxpayer money will make it a reality. We have made great strides in shrinking state government, but liberals continue to provide things -- believe, to want to provide things to all Mainers -- that is free. Ladies and gentleman, free is very expensive to someone. It's very expensive to someone and unfortunately in this case is to hard work in Mainers they're being forced into areas that they've never seen. As Franklin Roosevelt said during his annual message to Congress in 1935: "The lessons of history confirmed by the evidence immediately before me show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is a violation of the traditions of America." Ladies and gentlemen, this was true in 1935, it's also true in 2017. Liberals have not learned from history. But they have changed tactics. They are no longer in this body. They are doing an end run around the Legislature by hijacking the citizens referendum process. They say they are helping the low-income Mainers by raising the minimum wage and taxing the so-called rich, but they are harming our economy. We are losing doctors, dentists, psychiatrists and other professionals we so badly need. And you can all sit and deny, or you can accept it. But we all know we have spoken to people that have left. I have been receiving letters and e-mails. The day after Christmas, a doctor sent me a letter and said he was closing shop on December 31st. This is not the Maine I grew up in. It's not the Maine I want to leave. Liberals are harming our small family businesses, they're harming our low-income workers -- even worse... even worse, they're harming our elderly. Successful people and not the problem. They are the solution. They create jobs. Whether you agree or disagree, they pay sales tax, excise tax, income tax, property tax. They pay two-thirds of the revenues that come in to the coffers of the state of Maine. Ten percent of our population pays two-thirds of the tax burden. I will tell you something, I'd like to be one of them because I could sleep at night when I'm creating jobs and helping Maine people. Taxing them out of our state and hurting our economy is not the right thing to do. It is harmful to lay off employees. It's harmful to put your local restaurants out of business. It's harmful to drive the elderly deeper and deeper into poverty. Liberals from Southern Maine never go to Calais, Machias, Rumford, Fort Kent. I do. I see elderly living in poverty. I see Maine families struggling. Our industries are laying off hardworking Mainers or leaving our state. Give you an example just in the last couple of years: Madison Paper, Verso in Bucksport, Verso in Jay, which is downsized tremendously, Lincoln Pulp and Paper, Millinocket, East Millinocket, Old Town, just to name a few. We need to help our families not harm our families. My budget has a theme: Do no harm. I ask you to join me in doing no harm to our economy. Our citizens voted to raise the minimum wage. They also voted to tax the rich. I get it. I really do get it. But they did not read the legislation behind the ballot question. They didn't know that it would destroy a fragile economy. In my administration, over the last six years, we reduced the unfunded pension liability. At the time, it was very unpopular, but if you look at it now we are one of the strongest pensions in the United States of America. We paid our hospitals a debt that had been accumulating for a decade. We built a budget stabilization fund that was nearly zero when I got here. It was up to one $123 million today. And it could be $300 million if we had just a little bit more fiscally been responsible on the money we spent, we could be a AAA state. We reduced the structural gap from $1.2 billion to $165 million for the first time since 2005. This state finished the fiscal year with a positive cash flow of $45 million of real growth. We lowered the income tax from 8.5 percent to 7.15 percent during this period. Revenues started to increase. Wow. Wow. Wow. Imagine. Signs of prosperity. Signs of prosperity, folks. People have money in their pockets. More so than they did 10 years ago. Now under my administration, we've been moving forward. And to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by liberals. Frankly, the liberals I talk about tonight make each and every one elected official in this body irrelevant because they're going straight to referendum. We need to reform the referendum process and we need to return to a representative government. I hear the word democracy every day. We are not a democracy. We are a representative Republic. And we elected officials need to act like it. It's not easy and it shouldn't be easy. It's a tough job. Over the last couple of years, we've watched very wealthy out-of-state unions and progressive groups moving our state backwards. They spent millions of dollars so that we could become the second highest income tax state in America. California has the highest marginal income tax rate, which kicks in $1 million of income. Arguably, we are the number one state in America because we have a 10.15 percent income and it kicks in at $200,000 of household income -- household income. California is a wealthy state. California's 18th on the Family Prosperity Index. Maine is 44th. We can't compete with California, and we shouldn't try to. We should try to be Maine. We should be proud to Maine. The rugged individualism that made us great. But it takes everybody wanting to get it done together. We must help our families achieve prosperity, not shatter the American Dream with high taxation, high energy costs, an underperforming education system. I take great pride in saying the American Dream because I lived it. I lived it. And many people know that for 60 years I've carried a 50-cent piece. That's my sign of the American Dream. We have the responsibility to make sure that generations behind us have that same opportunity. That's why we're here. We're here to make a difference. I believe eliminating the income tax is the largest pay increase that Mainers will ever get. But there's no political will here in Augusta to strive for that prosperity. And I'm going to tell you a quick little story -- it's not even in here. But I'm going to go to the south and look at New Hampshire. New Hampshire is ranked 22nd on the prosperity index. Maine is ranked 44th. New Hampshire, I call it the pogo stick. They have no income tax, no sales tax, they have a 7th highest property tax in America. I call it the pogo stick, because they jump around on one tax. Maine has an income tax, a sales tax and we rank number 9th with the highest property taxes in America. I call that a three-legged stool and we're dragging our bu*ts around, and we're not getting anywheres. My budget attempts to counteract the damage from the 10.15 percent income tax. It is designed folks to do no harm to Maine. By 2020, Maine's income tax will be set at 5.75 percent for all Maine families. I believe we should all commit tonight to work at eliminating it, not stop until it is zero. My budget lowers... lowers the corporate tax, broadens the sales tax, eliminates the d**h tax. Now that's like a broken record, I've been saying that for six years. Every year I say that. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation called my tax plan this year a recipe for a more competitive state. I believe we owe it to the constituents of Maine to be competitive. It cuts taxes, it welcomes professionals and allows families families to thrive. It's designed to do no harm. As written, the law to raise the minimum wage would wreak havoc. Mainers did not read 32 pages of legal jargon behind the question. If the question asked Mainers to slash the pay for their favorite server they would have said no. If they asked them to increase the cost of everything that grandparents purchase, they would have said no. Let's be clear, I am not opposed to the minimum wage. But I would rather be talking about career wages. Liberals always aim low. They want to raise the starter wage. I don't want $9 jobs, I want $29 an hour jobs. I want jobs that people could live on and make a career and grow their families, live in Maine and be happy. But you can't do it when you're working two or three jobs. And we seem to forget that. The minimum wage would be devastating to the restaurant industry. Menu prices will increase dramatically to cover the new labor costs. It will eliminate the tip credit for employers, which will end tipping as we know it. That right there, that's my boss. She'll vouch for me. I want her to go back to work next year. But restaurant servers who are making $20 or $30 a year -- an hour this year will be relegated to a $12 an hour base pay and then they're going to have to fight for the... for the tips. Well guess what? Someone last week at a town hall told me some states get along without the tip credit. So I looked into it. I did. They're on the West Coast. California, Oregon, Washington state, Montana and Minnesota. The only one of those states that's above the top 20 is Oregon. Everybody else is far far better off and much richer states than the state of Maine. And then I find out that tips have gone way downhill. It's just the way it is, folks. We need, as a state, and this body needs to address the tip credit. We need to tell our restaurant industry that they are now a very important industry to Maine since they are the number one industry, tourism. We need to be supportive of them. We need to make sure that their servers can earn a decent living. I will say this, if nothing else, even beyond that: higher prices will push our elderly deeper and deeper into poverty. And you don't have to take my word for it. Just check it tomorrow. 358,000 Mainers. I'm going to repeat that. 358,000 Mainers live on $1,130 average Social Security check a month. Minimum wage as it's written is going to go up $4 an hour. In 2017, Social Security went up $4 a month. Medicare went up 2.8 percent. The elderly in our state right now are getting less money this month than they did two months ago, and we put a minimum wage on to increase all the costs of everything they purchase. We need to help 'em. I really got to say this side's getting a lot of exercise, thank you. If we look at indexing, it's even worse. It means the minimum wage is going to go up automatically after we reach the $12. Now just just remember here a few years ago, not too awful long ago, we got rid of indexing in the state of Maine on gasoline after gasoline hit $4 a gallon and we were indexing the gas tax. And we decided to -- wow, it's getting out of control. That was a good move. I think what you're going to find, if you look around the state we have a shortage of labor. That's why in the summer we use immigration laws to import workers. The market has already taken care of the minimum wage because at the time it pa**ed, there were under 6,000 people in the state of Maine making minimum wage or less. And that include, that included... that did not include the servers. But we had 358,000 elderly living on $1,130 a month. For a state like Maine, that is really poor. It's poor public policy. You know, the minimum wage was always intended to be a starter wage or a wage for people that could not work at 100 percent capacity. It was never intended to be a a wage where you would raise your family on. And make no mistake, this minimum wage has nothing to do with the economics. It has everything to do with socialist ideology. This is the same kind of programs that were brought to Greece and to Venezuela. And we know what their problems are today. We need to prevent that from happening. We need to be looking to reinvent ourselves. You know, our paper industry has left for the most part, but we still have 17 million acres of forestland. Let's reinvent ourselves. Let's make it work for the Maine people. You know, I know we have a lot of disagreements, but I will say this: if you do a lot of soul searching, I think most people here will agree that my budget protects the people liberals consider expendable. They have forgotten the elderly, they have forgotten the disabled and the intellectual disabilities. It seems that whenever I have proposed to help the elderly, the mentally ill and the physically disabled over the last six years, it gets k**ed. It either gets k**ed in committee or somebody k**s it and puts their name on it. Let me tell you folks I don't want credit, I want to get that job done. Take all the credit you want. You know, that's why Maine people and the American people say government is not working. And it's not exclusive to Maine. It's exclusive to this country. We need to get rid of gridlock and we need to find a way to get the job done. That's the bottom line. Is the 1.3 million people in this state deserve it? They don't even demand it, they just ask for it. We're starting to see a little bit of push when they go to referendums all the time. But this body can fix that. We can show strong leadership. We need to reform the referendums process in the state of Maine. We cannot make it so easy that out-of-state money controls our lives. We need to stand up. Patrick and Janet Caskin of Litchfield wrote to me to say their daughter Katie is still on a waitlist for intensive home support. She has an intellectual disability and she's been on Section 21 waitlist for five years. The last biennial budget, if you recall, two years ago, I paid off the entire waitlist of Section 21 and Section 29 only to have the legislature come in and reinstate two thirds of it. About a third of it they supported. You know, folks, we forgot Katie. We forgot it. She wasn't a priority. I think we need to make her a priority. We need to take -- make sure that our elderly are physically disabled and our mentally ill are cared for. I do. When it comes to our most vulnerable citizens, we all should pledge to do no harm. We need to make sure that they become a priority, and I'm the first one that will help anybody. My wife told me my entire life, 34 years we've been together, I'm always for the underdog. And I will continue to do that. But I think there are some priorities. Number one, family first. Two, your neighbors and relatives. Three, if you have anything left, help the common stranger. But we can't take money away from our elderly and to give it to people that we don't even know yet. There's a lot of talk around the country and there's a lot of hate. It's not warranted. It's only warranted once you don't take care of your own. You're going to see some bills this year -- very tough bills -- on deadbeat dads. And I'm going to say to you, I think taking their license away is foolish. I think what we ought to do, is make sure they go to work every day and on the weekends let's bring them in to house them in our... in our care for a couple of days on the weekend. You know, we've realigned the welfare system and the Medicaid program to prioritize elderly and those with disabilities. As Ronald Reagan said, we should measure welfare success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added. And I will tell you this -- We can all disagree but I am very proud of this statistic -- since we've taken a hard line on the 19 to 50 year olds that are able bodied to go to work, they are now earning 114 percent more than they ever earned on welfare. Our limited resources are needed for helping the most vulnerable. In our budget, our elderly, disabled Mainers currently make up 40 percent of Mainecare. It's a 35 percent increase since 2011 and in two years it will climb to 45 percent. I am telling you that we have limited resources. We have to make it work for the most vulnerable, and if they're able bodied we need to not just throw them off welfare. I'm not suggesting we throw them off welfare. I'm suggesting we roll up our sleeves, we work with them, get them the work sk**s they need to keep to get a job and keep a job and to be contributors to the to the economy of the state of Maine. That's the bottom line. We include $30 million to help increase costs from Medicaid Part B and part D. We also are asking you the last biennial budget, you came halfway and I thank you for that. You eliminated the income tax on military pensions. This time, I'm asking you: let's finish the job. Let's eliminate the income tax on pensioners in the state of Maine. This budget provides low-income and elderly homeowners with property tax fairness credit. I think that's important. This should help our -- you know -- this should help our elderly like Juliet Nyholt of Solon. She is currently another person who's struggling to pay her taxes, property taxes. In 1986, she wrote me and said her taxes were $300. This year, they're 2000. We're going in the wrong direction for somebody who's able, capable and wants to remain in her home. No Mainers should be taxed out of their home, especially when environmental groups throughout this state are taken hundreds of millions of dollars of land values and real estate off the tax rolls. I'm all in. I'm all in. You own land, you buy land, you should do anything and everything you want with your land as long as it doesn't hurt others. But I'm gonna tell you folks, you need to pay your property taxes. Many communities in the state of Maine and the Maine Municipal Association for that matter, they may do things right. They follow the law regarding tax lien and foreclosure. But there's a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing. Help our elderly stay in their homes. I find it unethical and immoral for any person who wants to and is able to live in their home to be thrown out. They lose the equity they built in during their lives and they end up on the street. Tonight, I invited Richard Sukeforth, an elderly veteran, and his wife -- lost their home in Albion after the town seized it back for taxes. Total, about $6,500 dollars. They live in a home, it had a market value considerably more than that. It was taken, sold for $6,500, they were thrown on the street. But I'm pleased to announce tonight, Adria Horn of the Bureau of Veterans Services, jumped into action and discovered he was eligible for V.A. benefits. Mr. Sukeforth now gets $1,200 dollars or nearly $1,200 a month in pension. That would've kept him in his home. And this year, I have a bill in and it's simply this, it's simply this. Before any town can foreclose on an elderly -- in fact, it should be like this for everyone -- you should first take a look at reverse mortgages. There's several options out there. There's abatement. If they have a whole lot of equity in the home and they don't have a mortgage -- in fact, what I'm telling elderly now, if you don't have a mortgage, go get one. With a little mortgage on your house, you make a friend with a banker when they're coming after you. Right? He's going to protect his interest. But, you know, what's wrong with a person that owes $6,000 in taxes? You go to him, say you can live here the rest of your life, you sign over the property, we will sell it, we'll take what's owed to the community with maybe a little bit of interest and then the balance of the money on your home goes to your family. That's the right thing to do. Now I will tell you, if you're a bank that's what you have to do. But if you're a community, you're exempt from it. Let's take that exemption away. Let's make them keep elderly in their homes. Next topic I want to talk about is the opiate crisis. It's ravaging our state. We have been urging the legislature to take action for years and many are right there with us, on both sides of the aisle. But there are many that are dragging their feet. It took me two years to convince the Legislature to allow us to hire more DEA agents. Just recently we made the largest h**n bust in the history of the Northeast. Eight pounds. And it could not have been possible without the additional agents. Not only the agents from Maine but the agents from New Hampshire the agents from Ma**achusetts and federal agents. This was a big haul. Lots of money, lots of d**, guns, vehicles. It was a major haul. So I do thank you -- maybe a little bit late, but we came around and we got it done. So now what we've done is we've gone from losing five people a week to over one person a day. 378 people died last year on overdose. We need to take action. Now, and I will say this, we had a very good conversation this week... Sen. Troy Jackson and I have been batting around, I think we're coming up with some ideas, we've discussed it with DHHS, we're trying to find programs that work. Because we have so much -- we've spent over $80 million and it's not working. Too many people are dying. And we've made tremendous headway in the opiate world. We've cut the prescriptions of opiates almost in half. We've made a lot of headway there. In fact, a lot of people are telling me that a third of the people addicted to opiates on the first try they can get them off. We're not having that luck with h**n and fentanyl. Heroin laced with fentanyl is a deadly, deadly combination. I've had a doctor tell me -- I asked a simple question: When are we going to get our hands around this beast? And his answer was: When this generation dies. Because it's that difficult. We can expect, if we're lucky, a 10 percent success rate. So, we need to be looking at the combinations of different options out there. We need to be looking -- I'm working with the chief justice -- as I said, Sen. Jackson and I met. We are talking about what can we try? And the chief justice is pulling her hair out as well. She understands the severity and the lack of success in our drug courts. We are looking at different options. Everything is on the table when it comes to the opiates, particularly h**n and the fentanyl. It is a real k**er. We have to take all of the above -- prevention. We have to start in middle schools. We need to start in the middle school now to try to train our children to stay away from the d**. We need law enforcement. We need rehab. We have a 200-bed facility that's going into in Windham. We need to get it in the ground as quick as possible. I was trying to get an update for you tonight and I just didn't get a hold of the commissioner in time. But he's going to get that to me this week and I'll relay it to everyone. The problem is this: We can't just simply throw money at something that isn't working because they're just going to die. We need to try to find a solution. You know I've spoken to a judge in Miami and his program is showing some promise. I mentioned it to the chief justice, she's working with judges now to see if maybe we can introduce it... a similar. It's changing the way drug courts are working. So that we can encourage people to want to rehab not using it as an excuse not to go to jail. So we are trying. Believe me it's a... it's something that keeps us awake at night. The opiates and the h**n is a deadly deadly drug. I know that Mary Mayhew and the DHHS, you know, through some really strong management -- and I give her kudos because instead of going to the Legislature as we were the first couple of years we were in the administration asking for $200 million another $150 million, another $170 million dollars every six months, we are now in a position where we're finding monies to do things. She just has $2.4 million dollars for a treatment to enhance a treatment program that's going to help 359... we're going to have 359 openings. That's happening as we speak. With the conversations that we had this week, I've had conversations with my staff and with Mary and they're looking at other options on opening up some other pilots that we might be able to throw some money at and try something new and different. We don't know if it's going to work, but we're willing to try to get in there. But it's got to be sound, it's got to have an opportunity for success. And believe me on the h**n and the fentanyl, it is deadly. We have over one person a day dying, three babies a day either afflicted or addicted. It's a real serious problem. Then I want to go into education reform. I was told this week that nothing's going to happen. I hope that that's not the case. You know, the future of Maine is our kids and I hope and pray that my daughter and my son get out of school some day because they're my 401k, like all of us. You know, out-of-state union, the national organization, came in and spent millions of millions of dollars to tax the rich. Folks, we don't need more money in education. We need more accountability in education. In the state of Maine... in the state of Maine, 59 cents of every dollar spent on education -- 59 cents -- makes it into the cla**room. The national average is 64 cents. That's an eight and a half percent differential. The state of California, 75 cents. The state of Illinois, a state that's on the verge of going bankrupt, is spending 70 cents in the cla**room. By taxing the 10 percent richest people in the state of Maine who pay 65 percent of the tax burden, we can't not forget that they can leave. Once they feel they're being abused, they leave. So what we need to do is we really need to seriously look at education and make more of the $2.2 billion that we spend on 174,000 kids and 148 superintendents. And every time I say that at a governors' meeting, they think I'm a comedian. We are the biggest outlier in the country when it comes to superintendents. We are just out of control. We need to seek accountability so we eliminate, in our budget, we eliminate the EPS formula and we say: communities, work together. This is why I've been asking the Legislature for six consecutive years, give me $5 million to work with schools, give me $5 million to work with communities. And rather than force consolidation from the top down, we asked them to go to their neighbors and work through regionalization through the RFP process and give us a plan that you can work together and we will fund it. We'll help you fund it, the first year to get you started. That's the way you get the cooperation from the communities. If we don't do this, we simply cannot sustain our education system. Their enrollment drops every year. There are more people that challenge... they want to go to charter schools, they want to go to private schools. They are looking for an education system that works for their children. The CTE system, the trades. All of the above. I'm a believer children learn with their hands, their eyes, their ears. Somebody like me learns by his mouth. It's gotten me this far. Doesn't mean you have to like me, doesn't mean you have to love me. Because that's not what this job is all about. When I need love, I go see my wife. If she's in Florida, I go get a dog. Really what it's all about, it's about our students and our teachers. We have some of the poorest paid teachers in America. So, what we're trying to do is set the stage for a statewide teacher's contract. I have met with the MEA last week. We got a long ways to go, but they really like the concept. I don't know if it can work as one state contract, it might be eight contracts. It might be district contracts. I don't know, but I told them that it's not going to work and there's no sense moving forward with it unless they're on board, because it's about our kids and it's about our teachers. I maintain, and I've said it for many many years, you want to solve the education problem in Maine, you put a sign in the middle of the table that says that every decision that is made has to be in the best interest of the children. I truly believe it's about educating our children. And the best way to educate is to have a mentor in front of the cla**room. A mentor, in my definition, is people like the Clara Swan that I just went to her funeral a couple of weeks ago -- 104 years old. She has thousands and thousands of people in this state that she helped. I was a high risk kid at 18 years old, when Mr. Husson Sr. said I'll give you a chance and he handed me over to Clara and said see what you can do with this guy. That's what I'm talking about. I think we have to allow young people that are in the education field to enter our schools and to become teachers in rural areas of the state of Maine that are constantly, constantly looking to hire new teachers because a young teacher who comes in lasts about three years. If they're good, the wealthy towns come after them and they're gone in two or three years. So what do we do? We backfill with double-dipping. The problem with double dipping, is it's going to come to haunt us. It's going to come to haunt us because they are going to get old and they are going to die off. So we need younger... we need an age balance. The same way you need an age balance in a forest, you need an age balance in your employment force. You can't have those big gaps. And so I'm saying, let's look at the youth that are coming out of some of the schools that are very very well-trained, and we need to get them into the cla**room. And we can't -- we can do it by having a statewide teacher's contract. Pay them what they're worth. We simply don't pay. The most important thing we do is we have children. We want to put them in the hands and we want them safe. And then we don't pay the teachers and they spend more time with the teachers than with us because we're out working all the time. We just need to pay them. We have to be demanding. We have to make sure there's accountability and responsibility but pay them. You know, growing up, I used to think the two professions in this world that I can't understand, particularly in Maine, that we pay so poorly was nurses and teachers. You spend more time with teachers than you do most anybody else and when you're sick, you see the doctor maybe 10 minutes a day. The nurse is the one I want to take care of me. And many of you have heard, to go on to higher education we have worked very hard at trying to lower the cost of higher education. We have the rural university, we have the bridge year, we have many many school districts and colleges -- Thomas College, Husson University of Maine, Northern Maine Community College -- they were all getting involved and helping our high schools. I think the University of Maine Fort Kent and Fort Kent High School really started us on the on on the track. This year, they're working with 98 high schools and about 2,500 hundred students. I'm so proud to say that in 2011, I was smart enough to listen to the president at the University of Maine Fort Kent. It wasn't my idea, it was his idea. And we went along with it and we made it work. And I'm so so proud at that university, what they're doing with our youth. So, this year, yes we are increasing the University of Maine budget. We are increasing the Maine Community College System and Maine Maritime Academy. Maine Maritime Academy speaks for itself. It's been known -- it's known nationally as one of the best schools. I think the community college system under Derek Langhauser is doing a marvelous job. He's bringing it back to the direction [applause] he's heading back to the direction of preparing kids to go on to universities, if they choose, but they are doing the trades and they're doing jobs and the hard lifting that we need a lot of people to be doing -- those jobs don't go away. And he's committed to doing it, so I am helping him. The University of Maine is coming off the sixth consecutive year without increasing tuition and they've worked for six years at the rural university in Fort Kent. And so I told him, yes you've proven yourself. And Chancellor page has done a good job. I just wish they weren't so liberal, but that's OK. We'll get over that. Very very importantly, I'm going to ask you again this year -- we pa**ed the law, now I'm going to ask you to fund it -- zero interest for our kids going on higher education. It's very very important. It's not only important to the kids here in Maine, but it's an important tool to attract people to come to the university and to the schools in Maine, and I will tell you why. Kids that go away to university, 70 percent don't go back, don't come home. So let's go out and recruit from other states, other countries, bring them to Maine. Maybe we can lower the median age of Maine by keeping these people living and earning their living and marrying and growing their families right here in the state of Maine. We have a program that helps companies pay off student loans, but it's too slow. If we're going to keep people let's allow the businesses to hire people and to work out employment contracts of five to seven years to pay off student loans so our kids that go in -- the younger people that go in to work in Maine -- aren't paying off historical loans, they're investing in a net worth for the future. I think that's very very critical to attract young blood to the state of Maine. I really believe we would be the only state doing it, and if we allowed our businesses to pay off the student loan and and allow them to write it off over a five to seven years instead of 20 years, we could take a big advantage, we could attract young people. I'm already working with the federal delegation to have an exemption in the IRS code to allow that to happen at the federal level. I really believe if we do that we'd have a head start on all the other 49 states and we could attract the cream of the crop to work in Maine. Two quick topics and then I'm going to get out of here and we can all come over next door. Energy. Energy, you're going to hear a lot about it, because this year, folks, in 2017, we have now gone from the 12th highest in the nation to the 11th highest in the nation. And for the next two years I'm going to use every ounce of my body and breath and blood and sweat to prevent the PUC or you folks to make us in the top 10. It's a k**er. And if you don't believe me, you call up all the industries that we lost in the last five years, particularly the manufacturing and industrial base and you ask them whether or not energy is not a k**er. This bill that was just pa**ed -- this rule that was just pa**ed by the PUC -- is the most horrific bill that I've ever seen. And if I had the ability right now, I'd fire all the commissioners, because what they did is unconscionable. What they have done is they said that if you have a solar panel on your roof, you're going to get paid for the excess energy. I'm all in. I'm all in. You generate electricity and you have too much, you want to sell it? I'm all in. But this is where the boogeyman is. They're allowing them not only to sell from their home here, but if it needs to be transmitted to the Blaine House across the street, they're going to get paid for transmitting and distribution of the power. Unfortunately, that's how CMP and Emera makes their money. So each and every one in this room and all the Mainers out there, I am telling you until 2042 you are paying for distribution of your power twice. That is wrong. It's wrong for Maine. It's wrong for Maine people. It's wrong for the PUC and it's wrong for this body to condone that behavior. The only reason that that's being done, and the technology is out there, they could easily generate the solar energy for their home put the excess in the battery and use it when they need it. The problem is the return on investment would be like 30 years. So I don't blame them for not doing it. I don't blame them for not doing that. But why should you penalize the elderly, hardworking Mainers to line the pockets of the solar industry? Because that's what we're doing. And I believe that they should get paid for the excess energy and we should work at finding ways to make it more affordable for everyone. But the only people that have solar energy are the big homes that can afford multiple systems. Mr. Sukeforth, Nyehold in Solon, they cannot afford these two systems, but you're making them pay for the distribution. You are making them pay for the distribution. It simply isn't right. There are better ways to do it. And I am all for allowing the technology to move forward. I'm all for solar. I'm all for the above. This is the questions I'm going to ask the Legislature... I'm going to ask you three questions and I'm going to ask you -- don't answer tonight, just think about it. Should we lower energy costs in Maine? First question. Second question. Should we lower carbon dioxide levels in the most effective manner? Should we reduce our demand on oil? If you say yes to all three then this is the answer, you lower the cost of energy without harming the environment. If we took that policy as a state, then we'd be agnostic to the technology and let the markets determine which technologies get to prime time first. Let's not pick the winners and losers. Let the markets pick them. All we want is clean energy at an affordable rate. That's what we should be determined to do. Tonight I would love to call up Premier Coulliard and say I want to buy 2,400 megawatts of electricity at 6 cents and I want to deliver any amount of electricity you sell to southern New England and I'll charge you a penny, so I get it for five cents. And if all the energy we make in Maine we sell it to southern New England, we would be competitive in the United States of America. We could become competitive. And people say to me, Governor we're the cheapest in New England. I tried that with Airbus, it didn't work. But the fact of the matter, folks, with 17 million acres of land, we do not compete with New England. We compete with Michigan, Wisconsin, with Minnesota, with Georgia, with North Carolina. We compete with states with big forests. We compete with Oregon, and out west they have hydro. The TVA provides a whole lot of inexpensive energy. So, I just ask you, let's be agnostic to the markets, to the technologies. Let's just be demanding to the markets that they provide us with low cost energy without harming the environment. If we do that, we become the winners. Because they will react. That's how it works. In closing, I just want to say this: My administration, my cabinet and my staff we try every day to attract small business and successful young professionals. We need to be creative, we need to find innovators and we need to find entrepreneurs to come to Maine, because we are aging out. We are an old state. We need new blood. We need to attract young, smart people. We must keep our families here and not allow our children to leave to go out of state and never come back. We need to attract new people from other states in other countries. We must give our young people a reason to stay in Maine and there's no other better reason than living in a state that is safe, beautiful. Now we gotta make sure that they can afford to live here. And that's the only missing ingredient is affordability. We need to have competitive rates on our energy. We need to be competitive in our tax structure. We need to have a system, an education system that's not the 23rd in the country, the middle of the road. It's got to be in the top 10, and you become the top 10 by having the best teachers, the best mentors in front of the cla**room. If we do that, we can make a difference. We can move Maine. You know, I read books on presidents and every single day I'm reading at least one or two books on Presidents. I have one in the bathroom, one on the night stand, one in the living room, one at the dinner table -- drives my wife crazy, because I don't talk to her. I'm always asking her about first ladies or their children. But I just finished a book by Andy Jones, and he made this quote. He said whenever government is, in general... whenever government in general is smaller, the people have more to say over their own lives and society prospers. We are trying to make Maine prosper. I have 45 years of business experience. Many of the companies I worked with were very very successful. I did a lot of consulting in the state of Maine. I have studied finance and economics. Believe me when I tell you, when it comes to business, I would not send you down the wrong path, but I will tell you this: It's not easy. It's hard work. It is really hard work. We are trying to make Maine prosperous. It takes courage. We need in Augusta have been elected to make tough decisions for the hard working Mainers in the state of Maine. And I'm going to say -- I often say -- the only constituent that's not represented in the halls of Augusta are the hard working people of the state of Maine, because they can't afford a lobbyist and they're not a special interest. They just go to work every day and try to earn a living. But they love their state. And they want to stay in their state. There's nothing more that I would like to see is grow old with my kids here in Maine. But I also understand, they have to be where they can raise their family successfully. So I believe we made some progress. I think we're in danger of losing the progress because of not just Maine, but the entire country has moved away from representative governments and we're moving over to referendums. There was a record number of referendums throughout the 50 states this year because people have lost faith in their governments. They really have, on both sides. I'm not -- everybody. You can see it every day just by the rhetoric you hear on the news. We need to take back our government. We need to say we have a responsibility to those who elected us and we have to do our jobs for the people elected us. And you know if you've got a monkey on your shoulder you've got to knock him off and get on with the work. So I ask you, tonight, over the next two years, I ask you do no harm. Do no harm to the economy. Let's try to figure out a way that we can work together. Now, I want to tell you something. Two years ago, for the last two years, Troy Jackson was not here in the House. He got termed out and he's back. And I will tell you, with some of the conversations we had a few years ago, it would be a wonder that we'd be talking to each other. But I will tell you this. He's a better man for it. I'm a better man for it, because we've met at least three times now? That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. For everybody in this room, you have a responsibility to 1.3 million people and this body of 186 people, with the governor, have got to make good public policy. It's our responsibility. So I ask you, the 128th Legislature, let's protect the economy, our families, our small businesses and, most importantly, our elderly. I ask you do no harm. And let's go to work. Thank you.