Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Lieutenant governor stak, speaker turzi, leader korman, lead leader costa. Family, friends, mom. [ applause ] and most important, my fellow pennsylvaniians. I have always believed in the potential of our great commonwealth. Pennsylvania is where i grew up. Its where francis and i raised two wonderful daughters. Its where i signed the backs of paychecks when i was a Forklift Operator and where i later signed the fronts of paychecks after i bought the family business. Pennsylvania should be a place where anyone who wants a good job can find one. A place where businesses, large and small, can grow and thrive. Its a place where every family can pass on greater opportunities to the next generation. When i first ran for governor, i met so many pennsylvaniians who believed in our potential too. Even if they themselves were hurting, struggling to get back on their feet from the great recession, they still loved our commonwealth and they believed that a Brighter Future was possible right here. But they felt like harrisburg wasnt necessarily doing its part to help build that Brighter Future and they were right. Thats why i promise to be a different kind of governor who would bring a different approach because i knew that we couldnt keep doing things the same old way here in harrisburg and expect a different result. So over the last two years, we have begun to make great progress. And even better, weve been able to make progress together. We came together to pass a historic liquor reform bill. I didnt do that. We did it. We came together to bring relief by medical marijuana, something people have been trying to do since long before i got here. I didnt do that. We did it. Today, pennsylvanias schools are beginning to recover from years of chronic underfunding. Weve taken a new, more aggressive, more effective approach to fighting back against the heroin and Opioid Epidemic ravaging our communities and proud to say, 82,000 more pennsylvaniians working now and there were just two years ago. [ applause ] but i didnt do that. We did that. But theres still more work to be done to help pennsylvanians build a Brighter Future and for the people harrisburg serves. Theres no better example than it sha the issue today, our state budget. Our commonwealth has been operating for a long time with a structural deficit. That means harrisburg has been living beyond its means. Households cant do that. Neither can we. Harrisburgs past failure to address that deficit led to devastating cuts in education, made our Senior Citizens more vulnerable and prevented our economy from reaching its full potential. To pennsylvaniaians, it seemed like it always brought out the worst in harrisburg. Politicians always found a way to avoid making tough decisions, special interests always found a way to avoid giving up their special privileges and taxpayers always wound up pulling the bag or settling for worse services. Harrisburgs inability to solve these problems put our Education System, our economy and our families at risk. Pennsylvanians deserve better and we must continue to deliver for them. As governor, ive pushed for a different approach, one that puts schools and seniors first. Because i believe that if were going to help pennsylvania fulfill its potential, we cant go back to forcing out children and our parents to pay the price for harrisburgs failure. Nor can we go back to the practices that created this problem in the first place. Nor for that matter can we go back to saddling pennsylvania families working hard to get by with the bill for a miss they didnt make. So im offering a Budget Proposal that represents a responsible solution to our deficit challenge and a different approach from the way things have been done inharrisbr almost a generation. Lets start here. In my proposed budget, there are no broadbased tax increases. [ applause ] at the same time, my budget protects the investments we made in education. In senior services, in fighting the scourge of opioids and in growing pennsylvanias economy. And it sets our commonwealth on a sustainable fiscal course that will grow our paultre Rainy Day Fund from the 245,000 it is today to almost 500 million by the year 2022. How . By reforming our State Government. By making harrisburg work smarter. One of my first acts as govern twoer years ago was to identify 150 million we could save by making our State Government more efficient. Everything from negotiating lower prices from vendors to putting Voter Registration online, to streamlining the process for outgoing mail. This budget goes much further. In fact, it contains the largest cuts to and consolidations of government bureaucracy in our history. [ applause ] now, some of these reforms are simply long overdue, common sense measures, like centralizing shared Services Like human resources, and information technology, selling property, the state owns but doesnt use, or consolidating Pension Funds to save millions that used to flow into the pockets of wall street managers. Some of these reforms reflect new thinking on how we can cut costs without reducing the level of service we provide to pennsylvanians. Like merging departments under one roof or offering a new Early Retirement Program to modernize our state workforce. And, yes, some of these reforms involve gritting our teeth and tightening our belts like eliminating funding for bureaucratic positions that are currently vacant. But streamlining our State Government doesnt mean reducing the services it provides. In fact, it can improve services. For example, my proposal streamlines the various programs designed to help Small Businesses get off the ground, by creating a single point of contact to help Small Business owners cut through the red tape, and start creating jobs. By identifying specific programs that could work more efficiently, and others that are no longer working at all, this budget proposes reforms that altogether will save taxpayers more than 2 billion. Thats right. 2 billion. Thats money we can use not only to protect the funding we have restored to education, but to provide more options for seniors, so they can stay in their homes while receiving the care they need, make new job creating investments in manufacturing and workforce development, and help communities ravaged by the heroin and opioid abuse. This proposal also closes corporate loopholes, that have helped Big Companies avoid paying their share. [ applause ] thank you. Look, i have nothing against successful businesses. I used to run one. But pennsylvania families are already paying too much to help fund our government. And when big corporations get special treatment, pennsylvania families and Small Businesses wind up shouldering more of a burden than they should. And thats why i fought to close these loopholes right from the beginning. Today, and in the days and weeks to come, well have a chance to sit down and discuss this budget in depth. But i believe that any debate without a budget is at its core a debate about priorities and the budget i proposed reflects my belief there should be no greater priority for our government than educating our children. [ applause ] after all, after all, if you ask pennsylvanians about their top priority, the odds are that if their parents or grandparents, theyll start by telling you about their kids or grandkids. Im honored beyond words to serve as pennsylvanias governor. But the most important job i ever this is being sarah and katies father. And i know [ applause ] and i know i know the same is true for everyone in this chamber who has had the incredible fortune to be a parent. There is not a single one of you, republican, not one democrat, who wouldnt do anything for your kids. Frances and i sent our girls to Public Schools in york county. There we watched them grow and learn and discover who they were, thanks in no small part to some incredible teachers. We watched them earn the opportunity to go off to college and we watched them build careers of their own, sara as an architect, katie as a geologist. When our State Government cut a billion dollars for Public Education we, like so many parents all across pennsylvania, were horrified. Teachers were being laid off by the thousands. Schools were pushed to the brink of closing and the same Education System that had given my kids so much opportunity was being set up by harrisburg to fail. As i traveled around the state, i found that i wasnt alone in that fear. I met brilliant students who were being held back because their schools didnt have enough textbooks. I visited some schools that didnt even have enough toilet paper. I met parents who were worried that the School Buildings they sent their kids off to every day werent safe. I met teachers who were being asked to do more and more with less and less and told they were overpaid. Over the past two years, we have taken a different approach. Instead of allowing schools to become the First Casualty of our budget deficit, we made them our first priority. [ applause ] we have undone nearly twothirds of those shortsighted cuts to our Public School system. In fact, we have made the largest investment in schools in the history of the commonwealth. We did. Struggling schools across the commonwealth are getting back on a stable financial footing. Parents and teachers no longer have to spend their summers worrying about whether the school doors will open at summers end. And when i travel the state now, i visit more and more School Districts where instead of scrambling to make ends meet, theyre expanding the programs available to students, and expanding the opportunities those students will have when they graduate. For example, the Dover Area School district, they created more career and Technical Education programs ranging from agriculture to accounting to geospatial technology. More than 200 students are now enrolled in these programs, many of them earning College Credits while still in high School Thanks to partnerships with post secondary institutions. And they have done this in dover without raising local taxes one dime. And in the Jersey Shore Area School district, they have used new funding to further develop their learning pathways curriculum, which helps prepare High School Students for careers in business, in human services, and in industrial technology. Next up, an expanded Health Science program. Meanwhile, in mifflin town, the Juniata School district was named to the ap district honor roll for expanding access to advanced placement courses and tests while maintaining student achievement. One of 44 districts across the commonwealth to earn that distinction. Our renewed commitment to pennsylvania schools included 465 million in restored funding for k through 12 education, 14. 6 million in additional money for early intervention, and 81. 4 million for higher education. We restored 60 million in funding for Early Childhood education and now nearly 200 School Districts across the commonwealth are planning to make new investments in prek or kindergarten giving thousands of our youngest pennsylvanians a boost as they embark on a lifetime of learning. [ applause ] we havent solved every problem in our Education System, but i am proud to say that with the investment we worked together to make, in pennsylvanias future, that that investment is already paying off. So in this budget, im proposing 125 million more for k to 12 classrooms. 75 million to expand high quality Early Childhood education, and [ applause ] thank you. And 8. 9 million in additional money for our state system of higher education. [ applause ] thank you. Just as pennsylvanians make their children a top priority, so too are aging parents, aunts, uncles, a top priority for all of us. When i was running for this office, i listened to seniors all across our commonwealth, and they told me that they very much appreciated how often politicians came to see them. But that they prefer real action on improving senior services. And thats why one of the first initiatives i announced as governor was to improve homebased and communitybased care services, so that more seniors could have more options for getting the care they needed without having to move out of their homes. And it is why [ applause ] thank you. And it is why when Health Insurers threaten to kick 180,000 seniors off their health plans, we stepped in and took those Insurance Companies to court to make sure that their coverage stayed in place. Just this past year we distributed more than 2 million in lottery proceeds to 43 Senior CommunityCenters Across our commonwealth. And we made it easier for struggling seniors to get assistance purchasing nutritious food. There is more to be done. Next january another new program called Community Health choices will come on line to help more seniors receive the care they need within their community and instead at facilities. Innovations like these are only possible if we continue to move past the budget battles that have paralyzed harrisburg for far too long and take a different approach. There is no better illustration of that different approach than the steps we all have taken together, to address the Public Health crisis of heroin and opioid abuse. This epidemic has stolen the futures of far too many of our fellow pennsylvanians. The numbers are simply staggering. But for me, i suspect many of you from many of you the numbers arent what compelled us to act. It was the stories. It was the people. The woman who has been through eight Treatment Facilities by the age of 20, but who still struggles with addiction every single day. The dad who broke down in tears begging for help for his daughter. The Police Officer who arrived on the scene too late to help the latest victim. I was in a Doctors Office just a short time ago when physicians assistant came in, closed the door, looked at me and said, youve got to do something. She had seen too many people suffering the effects of an opioid addiction. And then she told me that her own brother had died just three weeks earlier from a heroin overdose at the age of 39. There is not one of us in this chamber who has not been shaken to our core after hearing from a constituent who had to identify a loved one at the morgue, or bury a childhood friend. And so we Work Together to take action. We, armed Law Enforcement with the tools they need to crack down on those who profit from this crisis by preying on our most vulnerable citizens. And we equip police and First Responders with naloxone, a life saving opioid overdose antidote allowing them to reverse more than 2300 opioid overdoses so far. We destroyed more than 100,000 pounds of unused and unwanted Prescription Drugs before they could fall into the wrong hands and we redesigned the Prescription DrugMonitoring Program so that medical professionals could monitor patients and identify those who may be at risk. We have taken our campaign against opioids from classrooms, to emergency rooms, to correctional facilities, and we have devoted more than 20 million to expanding treatment options, creating 45 centers of excellence throughout the state, giving almost 11,000 pennsylvanians a chance to escape addiction. And when we took action to expand medicaid, providing more than 700,000 pennsylvanians with access to health care, we empowered more than 120,000 people currently battling addiction to get the help they need, which is why im going to keep fighting to keep the protections in place. [ applause ]