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The Best Time to Buy Appliances (and the Worst Time to Buy)

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Money Lost from Pension Fund Investments Last Year, Reports Oregon PERS. What This Means for Public Employers

Oregon PERS: Pension fund investments lost money last year. What it could mean for the future

Oregon Pension Deficit Grew $8B Last Year

The state’s public pension system had its worst investment performance in more than a decade, losing 1.55 percent of its value in 2022. To recoup its funds, the agency may have to make changes that could strain government employers.

Oregon PERS: Pension fund investments lost money last year. What it could mean for the future

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Editorial: Take advantage of your access to presidential candidates in Iowa

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Transcripts for MSNBC Jose Diaz-Balart Reports 20240604 15:38:00

acknowledged they were fund-raising for the campaign. and separately, in an exclusive interview, north dakota governor doug berg said he's considering launching a presidential bid in the coming weeks. joining us now with more is dasha burns here in miami and nbc news national politics reporter henry gomez, who spoke to governor berg . dasha, desantis' campaign said it raked in a hefty sum in fund-raising in the first 24 hours. >> yeah, that's right. $8.2 million in 24 hours. that's a significant figure. it beats what biden raised during that same period in 2019 when he announced his bid for the 2020 election. it took former president trump about six weeks to reach around $9.2 million, according to "the new york times." that's an important number and it is one we're probably going to hear a lot from the campaign as they try to make their case and use that as evidence to say,

Nodaway Valley, Orient-Macksburg send out the Classes of 2023

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Transcripts for FOXNEWS Fox News Live 20240604 16:17:00

pay it back. if to you commit a violent crime, you're going to jail. [cheers and applause] if -- can i get an amen? i'm going to tell you the truth. >> reporter: scott's team has confirmed the first major ad buy will be a whopping $6 million in states, one of which is new hampshire. florida governor ron desantis made a stop there yesterday. this week he's going to to meet with donors in miami where it's expected he will make the long-awaited announcement. and while in concord, desantis the met with residents, state reps and governor governor chris sununu who is still considering a run for president. but the already confirmed and prospective candidates have to the make major strides to catch up with former president trump's lead in the polls. perhaps one of the harshest critics of the former president may announce his run soon as well, former new jersey governor. chris:ty. north dakota governor doug berg am also expected to the make a decision in the coming days, and miami mayor frances suarez says

Transcripts For CSPAN2 North Dakota Governor Gives State Of The State Address 20230111

>> governor doug berg ham gave a state of the state address and energy, security, jobs and tourism. this is just over an hour. >> dinosaurs used to battle to the death and here we are 65 million years later as north dakotaens and we're benefiting mightily from our jackpot of geology set in motion all those eons ago. it led to the rich deposits giving us abundant oil, gas, and coal resources as well as newest multibillion dollar jackpot, our vast unrivaled with a storage capacity. far, far more recently, ice age, glacial deposits in central eastern north dakota with the new rich soils and the crop production and vast lands. in s today's global uncertainty and energy and food uncertainty was the envy of many. today we're blessing with abundant natural resources and caring people. the justices of the supreme court, all my fellow elected leaders, the tribal leaders, the cabinet leaders, first lady catherine, second gentleman craig, my family and friends that are here today. thank you. thank you for joining us today. thanks to the legislature for inviting us to speak, and thank you if you're online, overt airwaves, or in person. this morning we had an incredible opportunity to hear from m chief justice jenson and chairman jamie azure and the chippewa and we're grateful to both of you for your thoughtful words this morning and dedicated service for all citizens in north dakota and chairman, asure, for your craig yous leadership for the -- courageous leadership in the turtle mountain chippewa. as we enter seventh year of administration and fourth regular legislative session, catherine and i remain deeply humbled and deeply honored to continue serving all citizens in north dakota. we are very excited to welcome the 39th lieutenant governor of the state of north dakota, tammy miller. welcome, tammy. we're also deeply grateful for the six year of dedicated service by lieutenant governor brent sanford and nearly a decade of that before with the positive impact in the lives of north dakotaens will be felt for the lives and generations to come. help me in wishing them all the best. this is on top of the snow and ice storm that dropped 40-inches of snow across north dakota and knocked out power to tens of thousands of residents coming right in the middle of the spring cabinet and making it the fifth most costly disaster on record in the 2011 flooding. that april storm and november veteran's day storm and mid december and at the state level and life protecting efforts with the department of transportation schedule and state patrol troopers and radio dispatchers and department of emergency services personnel. ndbot had 50 snowplow weapons and last april storm seventh the first conditions the operators may be found leading the way and rural volunteer ambulances and first responder cspan reach those in the need of help. representing those dedicating state team mcellroys we have machine -- members and we have the snowplow operator and michelle, we're grateful for you and your courage and not just through the last help me in thanking all of the local operators. michelle. >> north dakota highway trooper was driving east and observe add semi-truck and jackknifed semi in the westbound lanes nearly blocking the entire road and quickly turned around in the median and flipped on the lights and approached the semi to check on the driver and the trooper astutely heard another truck coming behind him and quickly jumped over the median cable barrier, watched at the semi truck smashed into his squad car but it wasn't over. in the next several minutes, seven additional crashes involving 18 vehicles occurred at that l same location before y additional responders could arrive on the scene. through it all, trooper went from vehicle to vehicle putting himself in great danger checking on crash victims, directed them to safety if they could and incredibly no lives were lost and no one was seriously hurt. this is one single example of being in control and all of the other first responders experience everyki dairiesinging their lives to help protect others. trooper who served with us today and allpo of the first responde, we say thank you. unprecedented start to the winter system and this historic weather prompted for action and the sponsorship and we can expedite $20 million in snow removal grants and local and tribal governments and exceeded snowfall removal budget through the end of the year. as state leaders we have a opportunity to act quickly and relieve pressures on communities across the state. let's make this relief bill one of the first bills to reach my desk. [ applause ]. our citizens also endure add year of record inflation that put a strain on household budgets withh higher prices and everything from eggs and flour to gasoline and automobiles. we're grateful for this legislature to pass a historic bonding bill in 2021 that allowed us to avoid inflation and take advantage of lower interest rates and instruction costs and saving tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and building roads, bridges, water and other critical infrastructure. we made m great progress on dots ten year infrastructure plan investing $318 million so far to rebuild aging roads and bridges and our executive budgets that was proposed and unprecedented $2.4 billion to accelerate that work. we can build on the work done and water structuring with 600 million to advanced blood protection and regional and critical water supply. we do continue to make strides towards our goal of being the first state in thehe nation to reach 100% of citizens with fast reliable broad band of funds allocated of the american rescue plan act of broad band projects and projects proposed to install 1100 more miles of fiber connecting the last 2,150 underservinged and unserved -- underserved and unserved addresses in the state. we've been doing that and over 1 billion of private sector investments in just new soybean processing plants announced for north dakota and these plans will have theve capacity to process roughly 75% of the state'sua current annual bio-ful and sustainable aviation represents a huge growth opportunity for north dakota and expanded opportunities for collaboration between our two largest industries, ag and energy. this can be attributed to a lot of the baby kind and north dakota had 2800 more births than deaths in the last 12 months and the number of births was up over the previous year and in fact, utah has a higher rates of births per capita than m.d. norh dakota. our record population speaks to the abundance of quality life we enjoy in north dakota. the 106,000 residents that we've added since 2010 is the equivalent of adding another grand forks and another minot. yeah. we like that. 210 and faster all but six other states. turning to the future we're faced with unprecedented lives of north dakotaens and this legislature has the ability to diversify the economy and invest in structure and build community and support research and innovation and transform education atre k-12 and higher d he had improve government services and together we begin the journey from a position of strength. our combined reserves are the highester and revenues running % and our oil tax revenue running 60% over $1.5 billion ahead to forecast. we have the nation's second lowest unemployment rate by 2.3% behind utah and three largest cities business mark, fargo, and -- bismarck, fargo, and grand forks are the top five in the nation for lowest unemployment rates in the month of october. now is the time for strategic investment in our state's future. north dakota engaging on all of the above approaching to harness our oil and gas and coal and electric wind and solar. per capita basis, wyoming produces more energy than we do in north dakota. tapping thee abundant resources creating jobs, transforming the communities and states in the nation and only happens when risk takers, entrepreneurs and innovators invest their capital and their talent in our state. grew up a child of sharecroppers in rural oklahoma and founded in 21 years old. harold will help lead the horizontal drilling revolution over 25 years ago and it was a game changer that unlocked for us in our state and our tribal vast oil reserves. he's leading with the 40-year ban on exporting crude oil in ed2015 and they benefited every bach and producer and owned by the state of north dakota in the cross lands and schools and universities and oil and gas industry with north dakota and billions of dollars in tax revenue and support the state and tribes and nations and counties and cities, townships and school districts, hospitals, parks, airports through a variety of funds created by this legislature. it's also funded 100% of our $8 billion legislate seizure see disorders fund -- legacy fund and bit end of this 1.8 billion to k12 public schools and property tax relief in a decade ending 2025. more of the clean u.s. energy and allies forcing them to buy dirty energy and it's the second most powerful change the u.s. sees today and enhances stability. continental themselves had billions of dollars in private ndcapital towards u.s. energy independence and helped create what we in the world now know. we're deeply grateful by the investments of all the other industry leaders in north dakota thath underpinned our current process parity and helped -- prosperity and ensure a future for our nation and allies. we're deeplyy honored to have harold ham here today and representing the positive impact that he, continental resources and theth entire north dakota ol and gas industry have had on every single north dakotaen. we thank you, harold, your family, and the entire continental team. ladies and gentlemen, harold ham. providing a viable path forward for coal is a priority for this state and the station to rainbow energy center last year. it was a victory not only for the week and the entire region and the lights turn on and heat comes on and flip the switch and turn w up the staff and also for u.s. energy security and they all fought tooth and nail and affordable electricity and keep the light on and build coal like we've seen and let's give all of them a hand a including yourself for saving coal creek. pinto beans, dry edible peas and my favorite honey. we ranked second in rate of rye, sunflower, lentils, sugar, corn, soybeans, potatoes, and chick peas. r our farmers and ranchers battle every day and our state, country and the world. they innovate and implementing resilience in re-generaltive farming and -- regenerative farming and raising practices and pushed down through the federal government and these farm and ranch families are the backbone of our rural state and the work they do is feeding the growing rural and t for that we should all be grateful. give it up for all of our leaving of the crops and growing abundance for livestock and the processing projects we're 23rd for cat and will cow and minnesotans on east and milk koenens and minnesota is second, south dakota is tenth. consider this. north dakota's record year for cattle and counts was 1975. 15 now dairy cows left in north dakota for our school programs. hogs family membered in 1943 at $peakedav in 1943 at 1.14 milli. we must have asked ourselves agriculture that other states have that we don't and in north dakota and their family farming ouloss and they've got smartly allowed non-related parties to pool capital for animal with dairy farm and poor production. here in the heartland, we love our freedom and when it comes to making business decisions in north dakota, apparently that freedom applies to everyone in every industry exempt for our farmers. it's time to change that. we know that our farmers and ranchers compete with everyone, any time if they're given a level playing field. right now the field is so uneven when it comes to capital access and capital information. we can level it and we can do it wisely and a smart environmental stewardship and the economics increase land values and help rural communities. i urge this body to change this long, downward trajection and includes take the handcuffs off the ranchers and livestock producers and we need farmers in legislation and we need it now. we're leaders in ag and energy and north dakota can lead the nation in carbon capture with storage and reshape energy policy for this country. today we're on our way of achieving carbon neutrality and that's ordinary capacity to safely store over 252 billion-tons of co2 or the nation with a small output. with a process, most importantly we could help secure the future ofar our state's two largest energies, coal and agriculture. we're the first state to establish the legalta and regulatory frame work for carbon-captured frame work or storage way back in 2009. the first state. now we're in spot to leave the nation in the emerging industry because we can permit our own co2 storage levels five times faster than the epa and wyoming is the only state that has authority to permit a co2 level. we want landowners to pay for this by the legislature and finally this legislature also implemented long-term ability for companies that will pay into a fund and monitor the wells long term. the trifecta and we're the nation's leading person and richardson became the first working class 6co2 storage well in the nation now safely capturing over 500 metric tons of co2 per day. we have several other projects in the queue catching over 20 million-tons ofl co2 by 2026. so if you support our ag and ethanol industry, which i know you do and if you support our oil and gas industry, which i know you do, and you support our coal industry, which i know you do and continue to support this legislature that's given to ccs. don't take my word for it. we're the only state in the legislature that's written for state law and chapter 8 north dakota and its st.s and further geologic storage of carbon dioxide and including enhanced recovery of oil and other minerals and infrastructure being built for moving co2 in the future can be utilized for moving co2 for recovery or elr. risen into rock and shale formation to draw out more oil. one inside led the way on elr for decades. since october 2000, the subid area of power and electric has been safely capturing and transferring co2 and over 40 million-tons has transported to cespedes saskatchewan to the oil field and we've had a co2 pipeline 200 miles long and omitterring safely in northth dakota for over 20 years. putting more co2 down the hole that's produced when the barrel of oil comes and you happen you can create a carbon negative barrel of oil. that's transformative for liquid fuels, transportation fuels and transformative for north dakota. this year in north dakota, karol bonn negative oil production was -- carbon negative oil production was achieved in the 1980s wells revitalizing those wells and den berry is a trail blazer and using co2 piped in from wyoming. erc our own energy environmental research center estimates north dakota could potentially produce between 5 and 7 billion, billion with a b carbon negative oil using co2 for enhanced oil recovery and they're using for elr and driving billions of dollars towards the bottom line of oil, coal and gas strios and this with the ag projects and knocking on the door in north dakota right now. our state invested hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas tax revenue back into the u.s. technologies for over a decade. we continue to decrease that investment through programs like the authority and created by the north dakota legislature and oil and gas leases on federal lands. threatening oil and gas companies with taxes on excess profitsac and lawsuits and bring up the right of private landowners and our current federalt energy policy empowerig foreign dictators and weakening our economy, threatening the u.s. dollar as the world's reserve currency and it's actually bad for the environment and no one produces energy cleaner and safer than we do here in the united states and in north dakota. we propose 500 million and capitalize clean sustainable energy loan fund and with this infusion along with 50 million with granted through the fund and support cline energy projects that represents a path forward for base load through innovation over regulation. we saw it with the saving of bull creek station and it'll be our largest demonstration of the young senter and in addition, continental resources committed $250 million for the carbon solutions pipeline that will capture co2 and enhance the economics over 30 ethanol plants and customers over five statistic. today we're pleased to have the visionary leaders of businesses showing us the way on how these projects are going to define the future but they're working today in north dakota so we're going to congratulate them all but we've got red trail energy ceo and recognize minkota president that wasn't able to make it due to the weather and thank you for everything you're doing to advance the future. two sectors ag and energy and another top industry and one that's critical to work for us and that's tourism and recreation. we need to expand our existing tourism offerings and sharpen our focus on developing destination. those unique attractions and aerodynamic menties that really -- amenities that drive visitors to the state and we announced last month our budget includes 51 million to approve and expand state parks and recreational sites including new campground and the gorge planning for upgrades and beautiful state parks across the state and 50 million destination fund to be masked by private or non-state sources and build and expand attractions and we've asked ourselves for generations how do we keep our young people here? what part of the answer is trading vibrant communities attractions and recreations and young people and young families looking for place to live based on amenities in the communities and that region. when we leverage public dollars to drive private investment, amazing things can happen. they're happening right now with the theodore roosevelt ropresidential library and the $15 million endowment approved in this w room by the 2019 legislature has already been leveraged to drive over $100 million in private investment into our state. in 1883 theodore roosevelt first arrived in the bad lands 120 years later and starting around and he's in the arena for making america stronger on the world stage and so it's incredibly fitting. with a deep honor and deepest gratitude here today and tr library was brought and indominant for the very first time. it's completed a gift of $50 million to the theodore roosevelt library. thank you, harold. thank you, harold. this i is a game changing giftpi that will inspire donors across the state and nation. it's not a building but a world class state of the art interactive facility and the vision here is one to really build a lasting -- built to last a institution with leadership and we know that our nation more than ever. we have a golden opportunity working in partnership with a national park service to reimagine. what is already our state's most visited place and you've already been here. if you've been there and know it was built in the 1960s and this outdated cinder block rest stop that look as lot like raccoon skin inside and it's also open six month as year and not only the case when the interstate first opened in 1972, it was open yearca round and there was over 1 million visitors that stopped at the beautiful place. we have in our budget a canyon aspiring visitors that learn more aboutsp why only one of the 63 national parks is named after a person versus a place. and how tr's vision for national parks and as a park service and foundation and north dakota will have a opportunity to tell the north dakota story. to the millions of visitors stopping to enjoy one of the most spectacular views in north america. we'll be highlighting our military numbers and includes across our state and tribes including executive budget is a public private military museum and on the grounds and vision to be connected to the beautiful harrington center that this body had supported. the military members deserving of a peaceful setting where current and future generations of north dakotaens can learn morere about and reflect on incredible legacy of the men and women inko uniform. men like woody kebble in two ages and he's over in the national hall of honor, tribal hall of honorls and heritage center and it's fitting that the north dakota nationall guard in our great general is leading the efforts through the museum but in 1998 just nine g years after the north dakota became a state and nine soldiers from the first north dakota volunteers and they were 25 scouts crossing the burning bridge to route more than 600 insurgents entrenched on the opposite shore. north dakotaens need to know these stories and immense pride and heroism adopted as a state flag and state flag we have today and the regimented flag chaired by the first north dakota inventory. those will serve honorably and every conflict and at every call where our nation has asked for their help. including members of tribal nations who serve at a higher rate than any other group in the country. actions, accomplishments and uniforms they wore and equipment they operated and ships they sailed and it's a limited defense of the state nation and all l the limited threads of the fab lick making it legendary and servicemenul and women and deserves our support and with those who have served or currently serving insu the military and gold star families, please stand to receive our gratitude for your service. i'm excited to anoun the federal aviation approval one of the private sector partners to fly a drone beyond visual line of sight and air traffic control network for uas network and approval is a critical step that validates the state's investment and years of work to bring uas to commercial sectors to a safe and economic way. go ahead and cheer. let's keep that going and we'll see real benefits in the nation. just as we compete with other states and business sectors like ag and energy and tourism, we must compete with other cities across the country for work force. to help make our state and communities even more attractive places to live, we propose to energy the plan and attract the residents and retain the work force and they include $40 million to support more affordable housing and infield developments in blighted and rural areas. we know attracting work force. the legislature has been the most successful program in state history for reducing overall prop taxes and incentivizes splatter efficient use of intra-structure and communities statewide and after to reinvigorate the renaissance program and re-industry and reduce red tape and barriers for them to be approved. this matters and incentivizes of the existing infrastructure and subsidizing brandti new legend structures. keeping our community safe is a priority together and we can show our support for them and that north dakota unlike other states and other cities truly does back the blue by provide ago $5 million fund for matching grants for law enforcement agencies that they can use to drive work force recruitment and retentiones for equipment that protect the officers that put themselves in harm's way to protect us all.ee when we ask our law enforcement to put themselves in harm's way and we always stand behind them and unfortunately that's not the case and current state law requireslw that the officer sere within the state of north dakota for five years before they can be considered for worker's compensation claim if a defenseable work injury is not proven and caused the injury and this needs to change and needs to change today. if you serve in north dakota whether it's five days, five months and we'll stand behind you, your family, and brothers and sisters in uniform and let's get it done. supporting men and women in blue and brown and public schools, private schools and homeschool and men and women that dedicate themselves are our heros and do this not for fame and glory and do it to -- glory and to make a positive impact on the lives of students and for anyone that has been a teacher and is a teacher in the room and all the educating heros across the state. the learning continuing better known as graduation pathway available for all public schools. north dakota allow the public system to have ways to support the public students with a list of environments and now we need to figure out how to incentivize school districts to adopt what you all have created. our students need to take advantage of the opportunities and the door on the industry and each school can innovate and they're in power to step up and make it happen. flexibility to approach public school and students may not have to partner with all interested legislators including representative michelle to restore and expand whether through virtual school choice hoand public to public flexibilities and allowing greater autonomy through the center of public education and parents and students need to be at the table for connecting a learner on the structural environment or approach that best fits that person and that family. in addition to ensuring our students have a solid foundation and we must also address our work forcece challenges and higr education are key pieces to the pi and will as our nation enrollment trends for higher ed decreases, it's vital we provide the institution withs the resource and the flexibility to respond to work force needs more rapidly and we urge the legislature to advance the proposed $10 million innovation for work force grant and resources necessary to quickly respond to programs to respond to the private sector work force needs. our resource was also teaming up with 11 universities in five states like the regional technology alliance. our meditation alliance and our regional governors and proceed in a pure suit of grants and advance the next generation of technology and reuse our nation's reliance on foreign adversaries for such critical technology. to the first lady's craig yous story of her long battle with the disease of r addiction and many are trapped in the disease of addiction and inspired loved ones as well and the dream and hope of recovery exists for all the act. since 2017 with passion and dedication she's focused on the mission and recovery of this chronic brain disease. by eliminating the shame and stigma we remove the social barriers that prevent people fromam reaching out for help and accessing vital treatment and recover resources. with courage and passion, she's leading a movement that's changing the narrative, changing the policies, and changing the approaches of how health systems are dealing with the disease of addiction. the health crisis of addiction is still gripping our nation and 107,000 people died of overdoses in the country but right now focus on someone that's making a difference so if you know anyone who's been affected by the disease of addiction in your company, your family, your neighborhood, friends, workplace, stand and join me in thanking our incredible first lady. >> critical supporting individuals with these addictions are something that came out of the work of our north dakota behavioral health team and recover re-invented and that was when we're faced with this incredible shortage even six years ago of addiction counselors in our state, and we were one of the first states to come upp with the idea of licensing peer supportre specialists and these are individuals that use experience to get training and they get qualified and certified and assist others on their journey to recovery and wellness. starting from zero, we now have currently 819 trained peer support specialists across our state. one of them will share with us today and have incredible story about transforming her life and helpingy others to do the same. she's a mother in long-term recovery and overcome uphill bat and will rebuilding her life after many years of substance abuse and interaction with the criminal justice system that led to criminal records and fighting for legal rights to parent her children again. to me recovery means i can wake up and am surrounded with my children and my positivity and health and stability. i can support others in reaching their recovery goals too. her incredible story of resilience andgo recovery is one of many. this individual is working as the peer support administrator in the behavioral health division at north dakota department of health and human services and celebrate her and her journey and continued passion ofvi all 918 peer suppot specialists that are transforming and saving lives across north dakota. christie johnson, please stand so we can recognize you. in june there was an agreement between the north dakota highway patrol and the nation and the existinghe agreement in place wh the nation. these agreements enhance emergency response by allowing the closest available peace officer to respond to the emergencye call for service and when someone in distress calls 911 they should never worry about what the emergency will be or depend on a tribal member or not.l we're all citizens of north dakota including every tribal enrolled member and in this stays, neighbors lookout for each other. we have to clarify so we don't get confused. chairman big doug and i had the great honor of this last year when they won the state class b championship on the governor's championship to host them and congratulations to that team. collaboration with the tribal mcellroys have never been stronger and there's still much work to be done. we have come to all of this work in a good way in the open heart andd respect for the rihanna resiliency of the tribal neighbors that often remain entangled through the systems, plural, with their ways to have healthcare and education and i want to congratulate those tribal chairs and counsel members that recently won they're lbs.es. chairman jamie asure for the chippewa indians and glad you're tback and from the nation and chairman jake rendal and he was here today and being inaugurated right about now and we also want to recognize standing rock to tribe chairwoman who was not up for election this year and as i mentioned again, spirit lake nation chairmann big duck yanktn continues to dually serve the constituents and it's not county commissions and not park boards or state legislator and hardest job in the chairman and let's thank them. across our nation, businesses, school leereds, nonprofits and every single employee in the state is across the country and most recent report showed there's over 16,000 open available jobs in november. we know that employers don't post all their job openings and you've got 15 nursing jobs and it's super conservative that the estimate of the number of jocks are at least -- jobs are at least twice as many and 32,000 jobs open in the state and it's equivalent of jobny openings in the woman and child in james town and proper improvement from bowers and held up by the treasury and so construction so begins and even if it means advancing funds for the federal funds are coming and let's get that bill done right away and get that bill flowing and we have the financial meansge to me that loan and we'll get to invest in child care and make it easier for north dakota with families and investing in this nation with matching grants and investingen in work force transition training and retrain and work force option and we should double our investment in the native american scholarship program building on private sector efforts like from the corporation and putting $14 million in the areas across north dakota and in addition to investing in north dakotaen who already live here, we need to step up and recruit them to our state. even if every high school student or college graduate and there's very, very few left and them coming out of our system and high school and college and they all took jobs, it wouldn't be enough to fill all the jobs in the other states. we have to have net migration and part of the comprehensive work force initiative and the department of commerce refreshed and expanded and find a good life in the north dakota campaign. it's not just ads but connecting individual leads with individual communities and jobs and they're interested in relocating into a pipeline and connecting with community champions and many success stories out there and go check them out. to make our state a more attractive, affordable place to live and give an advantage to compete as workers, we can and should adopt the lowest flat tax, income, flat income rate tax in the nation and incomes tax relief plan earlier this fall and included in the budget will eliminate the state income tax for three out of five and they'll see their liabilities reduced by one quarter to one-half allowing hard working insidens to keep their money -- north dakotaen to keep their money and offset expenses and invest in their families and communities. i want to again thank the representative headland, senator meyers, connie, representative bosh and commissioner for their partnership and leadership on this proposal, which will put us on a path towards zeroing out the income tax and joining the eight other states that have no individual income tax andnd hava right now large recruiting advantage as we compete for work force. inflation rising interest rates are eating away at family finances. consumer prices in november were up over 7% from a year ago. let's show working families in north dakota that we understand their struggles by expediting this income tax relief legislation and making it, again, one of the fist bills to be signed this session. ... to sit down with anyone to discuss ways to actually reduce property taxes. not talking about subsidizing property taxes with more state transfers of dollars like 17 bills and billions of dollars over the years but how do we actually understand and figure out how to reduce global property taxes. we don't want to enc in the meantime of course you do have an income tax proposal that is a real reduction in taxes because it reduces the amount ofed tax revenue that the government collects. this will immediately help us recruit and retain workers. we also fully support a proposal coming from senator meyers to exempt active-duty military pay from individual income tax. military servicemembers right now are choosing to dominance island states where they don't have to pay state income tax including minnesota which effects are all north dakota national national guard and their border community community. let me be clear minnesota has higher taxes. military members don't pay taxes in minnesota. we have people that are moving to east grand forks and more head and joining minnesota and we have trained her positions open the north dakota guard. that's another one that we should put right through. the first hard to make north dakota most military friendly in the state and we did a successfully exempting military pay from income tax. let's keep that momentum going into the same for our active duty men and women in uniform. [applause] in may of 1974, there was a kid who is was a senior in high school in north dakota and not unlike now he was writingng his high school graduation speech at the last minute bugs. pulled up that speech last night and on that speech much shorter than this one i'm sure you're happy to hear but there was a list of the world's problems including inflation in 1974, a political scandal coming out of the nixon years, pollution. overpopulation there was an energy crisis and there were wars happening around the world and guess what seemingly endless shortages. but in that speech i also talked about the world of space-age technology and we were coming out five years after he put men on the moon. i talk about automation and i said all of the problems that we were facing were all man-made and there could be solutions and we could solve those problems. so looking back now over all these years to that short little speech is incredible how many problems we are still facing today. as i said then and i believe today prefer not to think of them as problems. as challenges. in north dakota we are in a better position really truly to copy any other state to tackle some of these persistent challenges and as i said they are not new. the station -- space food security global instability but we have an opportunity here. we have the unique opportunity in our state. we are small enough where we can work together. we can grasp this moment to make a positive difference not just for citizens in our state that our nation we can be the role model of how it gets done. together we have an opportunity to fulfill a powerful purpose and that's to empower people to improve life and inspire success. in our state every community and every city can reach their fullest potential. yes we are blessedan and yes its an unbelievable time. because we are so blessed with the abundance of natural resources oil gas in our water and soil but we also have something we need to remember that isn't ever going to be constrained by supply-chain and doesn't require billions of dollars. it's more powerful than any innovation. itdo is infinite in its reach ad what i'm talking about is the aspirational values that will solve many problems and create greater understanding and relieve the pain so many in the world feel today. so my challenge to all of us is going forward let us strive to employ these incredible tools that we have, the curiosity to learn from those that are different from us, the curiosity to bridge those differences the humility which we need now more than ever, the humility to know not only what we don't know that the humility to admit that what we might have learned five, 10, 20 or 30 years ago is no longer true. and we have to have the courage, the courage to think boldly to care deeply to live passionately and i think most importantly for another north dakotans who too often look at ourselves and say everybody else somehow is better than us or some places better or it's warmer for something whatever but we have to let go of all of those self constraining ideas about our state and we need to do this manyny people i have introduced today the business leaders, the snowplow drivers are highway patrolman our specialists have all done here in north dakota great things and we need to dare greatly and we are standing on the resources right now and today are more greatly than we ever have in our history. finally the last one of these foreign and we all know the familiar words of faith hope and love in the greatest of these is love but the unlimited resource of gratitude which is found in love. we are here today because we love this state and as we love this state we love it deeply and i will fight to do the right thing for our state in and our country. let us also remember to love one another as well. god bless you all and god bless the great state of north dakota and god bless the united states of america. thank you. 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