Have governor of rhode island. Thank you everyone for staying patient. We have had our fair share of trouble issues today so we appreciate you sticking with us. We will have to cut our time a little short because she has places to be but we will get down to a lot of questions and really good discussion of state policy. My name is caitlin emma i am a federal budget and congressional appropriation on capitol hill for politico and just a quick reminder to you guys here in the audience and those tuning in on the lifestream, tweet your questions with the state solution. I have a circuit here and i will track those and hopefully we will get to one or two at the end of our time today. So i am here with rhode island governor gina raimondo, shes serving in the second term as estates democratic governor and she recently delivered her sixth state of the dress. We have a lot to get to and we definitely want to talk on state policy with the time that we have. But i kinda wanted to start with some news that you made earlier this week regarding 2020. I saw you endorsed Mike Bloomberg for president preview the former chair of the democratic governor association. We have a number of candidates to choose from here. I know mayor bloomberg has previously backed your ambitions. But Vice President joe biden publicly endorsed you previously as well. Im wondering why bloomberg who is seen as a longshot candidate although hes gaining momentum or why not some of the candidates who stood out in iowa even though the results are what they are. But clearly why have you decided to back mayor bloomberg and service as National Court campaign. They stand for having me and i apologize for the delay. I got off the flight and came right here but we were delayed out of provident and im sorry that a lot of weather. I have decided to endure bloomberg for president for a few reasons. One i firmly believe he has the best chance of beating president trump. And im happy to go into that. For me that ought to be our top priority. If thats not clear by now if you watch a sham of an impeachment proceeding in the defiant state of the union knows its time for change and i think bloomberg has by far the best chance of beating her. Secondly, you mentioned chair of the governor, like governors, Mike Bloomberg has run things. Very successfully. He has run a huge company that he started in a oneroom office. And he ran the city of new york, new york city is the biggest most complicated city in america. He ran it successfully for 12 years. And frankly like a lot of governors you have to deliver, you cannot offer promises that are unaffordable, that will never come to be that sound good on the stump, you have to fix the roads, provide healthcare, respond to people, make sure the trains are running on time, quite literally, subways in new york city, and he did that. He created half a million jobs and his tenure into covert after 9 11 when the city was on its these and let a great research. Apart from the fact that he liked his chances in november i think is a great leader. In the president s job is an executive job. So i figure somebody who has a track running of running things. You mentioned biden has supported me in the past. I am an admired an and his serv. And you mentioned Pete Buttigieg to his soaring, i think he is a fantastic Public Servant but we have to be very real and very practical in 2020. We have to be focused on winning and for me it was not that difficult to endorse mike. Lets dig into state policy. I know rhode island is facing a projected 180 million budget deficit as a federal budget reporter, i definitely know a little bit about deficit. The federal government is a 1 trilliondollar. That must seem small to you. Actually it was. In researching the state that the drop in the bucket. I know this plays out differently on the state level in the state environment. You said you have a lot of tough choices to make when it comes to tackling the budget gap in addressing how much rhode island is spending versus taking in in revenue. But at the same time you dont want to cut healthcare or medicaid or backtrack on the ambition policies which you push through so far. So what are these tough choices you have to make, how we address the gap . It also calls for intubation. We cant keep doing things the same way. We have to deliver services in a different way more efficiently and effectively a partner with businesses, nonprofits because, yes we have to make cuts, and balance the budget, i presented it to my legislator two weeks ago with no broadbased tax increase i think thats very important. But theres a lot of innovation in different ways of doing things. And a lot of investments. At the same time we were deficit and im committed to not raising taxes, we also need to invest so Rhode Islanders have opportunity. The budget i presented called for 50 increase in public prek classrooms. I believe every kid should be able to go for free. It calls for Tuition Free Community College for every high school graduate. Something i started a few years ago thats massively successful. It called for big investment and housing. Housing is in crisis in rhode island in many places. Crisis of housing is greater twice as fast as wages. So how do you do it and ready find the money . One innovation is around medicaid, medicaid is about a third of Rhode Islands budget. Which is quite similar to most states to medicaid expansion. As you all know. We have to figure out how to keep a lid on cost without hurting folks by cutting them off of healthcare and reducing eligibility. One idea i have, and this years budget, is to say if you are a fulltime employee and you work for company in rhode island but you make so little that youre medicaid eligible, by the way we have tens of thousands of people who fall into that category. Fulltime employees, on medicaid and food stamps. We will say you got the employer has to provide Health Insurance coverage, you have to take it. But medicaid is more generous than what your company provides. They will make up the gap. Lets say you work for walmart, you live in rhode island, your currently on medicaid, Going Forward walmart has to give you Health Insurance, you have to take it. And walmarts Health Insurance required large copays, large premiums, out of pocket cost. We the state of rhode island through the initiative called rideshare will pay them for you. Will pay your copay in your premium. So the employee is no worse off. But the employer does not get a free ride anymore on medicaid. They have to provide you with Health Insurance. I think thatll make rhode island healthier and freak the ethic its right thing to do. As a solution for tackling this deficit, you have talked about wanting to pursue where one legalization. But anothers resistance from the state legislator when it comes to doing appeared why do you think its a realistic solution to increasing the state revenue and really how can you get this done . Let me say, its not that i want 2 , in fact the first four years as my term of governor i resisted. I did not support myself. And the reason to do it is revenue. I dont know if you been to rhode island, a fantastic state. Its a tiny state, small nestle between connecticut, massachusetts and a couple hour ride from new york. Massachusetts has legalized Adult Use Marijuana. Connecticut is about to, new york, new jersey, a stone throw away. If you talk to state troopers on highways or teachers in schools, they will tell you, governor it is here, whether you like it or not it is here. From my office in the statehouse in providence and the closest marijuana shop in massachusetts is about a ten minute drive. So to pretend that we dont have Adult Use Marijuana in rhode island is to silly. Lets do the right thing to keep them safe, public health, safety and lets have a responsible way to regulate Adult Use Marijuana. By the way there is not that much revenue in it. Because the way i propose that were making increase investment in public awareness, public health, public safety, increase investment and social equity. To try to make up for frankly many of the injustice and the way this country has done policing. At the end of the day its not the money its a realistic proposal to deal with whats there. I think we learn something as governor, legislation change their mind and sometimes it takes more than a year to get a good idea done. Im asking them to hold hearings this year, do their job, study, get smarter, see what they like, see what they dont like, if we dont do this year maybe next year. To my mind its inevitable and we should be smart about it. You touched on your proposal for prek a minute ago but you also did interesting innovations when it comes to herod. I know you promise to provide twoyear Tuition Free Community College in the proposal of rhode island to make it a Permanent Program i believe sunsets issue. A twopart question, one, how do you plan to do that, to this is obviously, as former chair of the democratic governors association, this is a popular proposal that democrats have embraced on the national stage. Is this the idea of twoyear Tuition Free Community College or freak college in general. It is unscalable or realistic . Absolutely. At the end of the day for rhode island they all have the job training and education that they need to to a dock. That is not necessarily for your College Degree but ill tell you this is some degree past high school. Period. The days of getting a decent family supporting middleclass job with just a High School Degree are essentially gone if the knock on now they will be gone soon. An issue of basic equity and fairness. How do you say to people you need a degree past high school to get a job but by the way you have to go bankrupt and get into debt to get that degree. It is completely unamerican and unfair and bad policy. And thats what invested in apprenticeship programs, crude education in two years Tuition Free Community College. In the time that we had done this, two years Tuition Free Community College, we have seen a tripling of a Graduation Rate at a community college. It is amazing. A few Million Dollars a year, nothing in the context of a 10 billiondollar budget, we seen it tripling, and nine fold increase in Graduation Rate of students of color out of community college. So for me, its fairness, equity, good for the economy, and emil affordable, the proposl wont cost any more money, its happening, its working, my contention is just to make it permanent. If they do not make it permanent set to expire this year. It would be a crime to pull the rug out from so many young people given it such a successful program. We want to keep you on schedule but i want to make sure we squeezing questions from the audience on twitter. Does anybody have a question that they would like to ask . You mentioned education why dont you see the other way around, you get a good education from k12 and then they get a job rather than after four yea years, they dont understand education. And they dont understand how to manage a government. Its being abused. The education we need and spend more government budget eventually is corrupt and the government and society. Achievable and efficient education in providence and how to solve the basic problems rather than their families. I think that your touching on the interesting issue when it comes to improving education. I wanted to ask actually for providence, i know that district, School District is in the midst of a state takeover, i was a formal education reporter before he covered the federal budget. Very familiar with this model and how difficult and painful it can be. Can you talk about improving education at the state and what your marching orders are for the school differen district . In november of last year a few months ago i decided to take an unprecedented action to doing state takeover over City Public School systems. The simple answer is because the system is broken in providence, for years and years the School System has been overly bureaucratic and just letting down student, teachers and the community. You have schools in providence, im not exaggerating this where the facilities are so deteriorated that you hear stories of fact and classrooms, brown drinking water, no heat in the winter, it has been decades of neglect and dysfunctional system so i decided to go ahead and take this action and by the way, it is not necessarily money in other words we spu spend 18a year per pupil in providence, its not using the money wisely though thats a problem. Number one, get rid of a cultu culture, there needs to be a culture that says every student can learn and hold all its students to high expectations. Black, white, boy, girl, hold them all to high expectation. Secondly standardized curriculum across the district, right now if youre in third grade one school, youre learning Something Different at another third grade in another school. Is not aligned, its kind of unbelievable. More autonomy for principal so they can make decisions within their school. A whole lot more teacher, high quality teacher development. High standards, standardize highquality curriculum, different culture, the culture accountability and success. Big improvement of facility and a lot more supported features. We want to be respectful of your schedule. So thank you so much for your time. I think we learned a lot in the time that we spent from your view that mayor bloomberg can be trump or Marijuana Legalization is the future things are heading or to the efforts are taking to cut the care costs in the state. I want to thank you for sticking with us and everyone tuning in lifestream and i want to take them for partnering with us in this event. Can i get over a shadow to microsoft. Sure. Somebody was talking about partnering with companies and doing things innovatively. The year i took office or the year iran 2014, 42 students in Public Schools in rhode island took the ap Computer Science test. Thats a serious problem, 42 students. 0 kids of color in 12 girls. Just think about that. Every job pretty much requires computer skills and it was not happening. So i said come on team lets make a solution. And we partner with microsoft, they came to town and have helped us to teach teachers how to teach Computer Science, partner with codata or university of rhode island. We became the first state in america to teach Computer Science and a three grade starting in category. Last year over 1000 Rhode Islanders to Computer Science in high school for college credit. So thank you microsoft. And thank you to all the teachers who up the game and learn how to teacher. But 42 to 1000 in two years, thats what we can do when we think outofthebox. Great shout out to them. Its time for everybody to stick around with us, have a cuppa coffee, have lunch in the second half of our program should start at 1 15 p. M. [applause] this is the panhandle of texas, the only place you can watch your dog run away for two weeks. The majority of the towns and cities in the panhandle would not exist if it were not for the coming of the railroads. [wshhistling] the cspan cities tour is on the road, exploring the american story. This weekend, we travel to amarillo, texas. Amarillo is in the center of the texas handle. We definitely call ourselves the capital city of the texas panhandle. I really think our superpower here in the city of amarillos we think regionally. With the help of our partners, we will learn about the history and literary life of the city and surrounding area as we talk with local authors and visit historic sites. The park today is like it has been for thousands of years. All of a sudden, you come across this huge drop into the earth. It is the secondlargest canyon in the u. S. After the grand canyon. She was here twice between 1912 and 1914. She was an amarillo teaching for the Public School system of amarillo. 1916 to 1918, she came back and got a faculty position here. We do not know what they thought. She wrote prolifically. This letter can teach us so much about this artist struggling. Ith things you can imagine so relatable. She is not the same crappy antiwar figure. Joined us this saturday at 5 30 p. M. On cspan to book tv. And then sunday at 2 00 p. M. On aspan3s American History tv the cspan cities tour takes you to amarillo, texas. From camping 2022 nevada this weekend, saturday night live at 11 rpm eastern, democratic president ial can its joe biden, Pete Buttigieg, centre amy klobuchar, tom steyer, senator bernie sanders, and to Elizabeth Warren speak before clark county democrats. On sunday, live at five rpm eastern, joe biden, Pete Buttigieg, centre amy klobuchar, and tom steyer speak at a forum on infrastructure. Live coverage on cspan. Watch ondemand at cspan. Org and listen on the go on the cspan radio app. Article two is adopted. Do you solemnly swear that in all things pertaining to the trial of the impeachment of donald trump, president of the United States now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws, so help you god . It will compete as a court of impeachment. What we have seen the last couple days is a descent into constitutional madness. Again, we think the basis upon which this has moved forward is irregular to say the least. Don