Among the issues addressed were voting rights, gun background checks and medicaid expansion. This is about 50 minutes. It is my pleasure to present to you, the governor of the commonwealth of virginia, Governor Terry mcauliffe. David, come on thank you thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen, my fellow virginians, good evening. Good evening. Speaker cox, senator newman, justices of the supreme court, ladies and gentlemen of the virginia General Assembly, i do once again appreciate the opportunity to address you one final time. Todd gill bert, i would be careful. Last year every republican i gave a shoutout, theyre not back this year in the chamber. And you guys have done just fine. Before i begin, seriously, i would like to thank speaker bill howell for his many years of service to this commonwealth and to tell him and his family that we are praying for his speedy recovery. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, mr. Speaker, on your election to this historic office. I am so proud to be joined this evening by so many people who have worked tirelessly to help this administration and this commonwealth succeed over the last four years. We have with us my incredible wife, and my better half, the first lady of the commonwealth of virginia, Dorothy Mcauliffe is with us tonight. Her leadership on childhood nutrition has resulted in more than 12 million more meals being served to our students this year than in my first year in office and her work on behalf of our military students and their families has ensured that virginia will remain the number one in the world for our Service Members and their loved ones to call home. Thank you, dorothy, for your great work. I would like to take this opportunity and recognize and thank our five children, four of whom are here with us tonight. I want to thank my daughter, dori, mary, sally and peter, for enduring this governor ship and being a great partner to their dad. Thank you. Our Lieutenant Governor, and governor elect, dr. Ralph northam and his wife are here with us as well. Ralph, let me say this, i have been so fortunate to have you as my Lieutenant Governor and my friend. I know you will make a great 73rd governor of the commonwealth of virginia with pam at your side. Congratulations and good luck. To our attorney general, mark herring, i want to thank you for your unwavering dedication to upholding the law and protecting the rights of all virginiiavirg. I have loved every minute, as you know, but i have really loved working with ralph and marking and i know they will continue their great work alongside our next Lieutenant GovernorJustin Fairfax over the next four years, congratulations, justin. And to my entire cabinet, who has been nothing short of spectacular, i take pride in i believe the greatest cabinet ever assembled and their team, i thank them for their tremendous work. I especially want to thank my chief of staff, paul reagan for the great work they have done, they have never failed to think big and to try new things, on behalf of all of our citizens, thank you for what you have done for this commonwealth. But there is one cabinet secretary in particular, who i think has tremendously helped everybody in this chamber. He has helped us all sleep better at night. Finance secretary rick brown will soon retire after 47 years of dedicated service to this great commonwealth, rick, thank you for your leadership. Congratulations, buddy. The men and women in my cabinet have done tremendous work over the past four years, but our accomplishments would not be possible without the most talented and dedicated state Employee Workforce anywhere in the globe. I am so proud that we have been able to Work Together to get them two well deserved pay raises and i hope you will accept my proposal for another one, please join me in recognizes the 110,000 state employees who keep this state running. We are also so fortunate to have the greatest first responders, Law Enforcement, national guard, active duty military and veterans in the nation right here in the commonwealth of virginia. We should never forget these men and women who put their lives on the line every day so that we can gather here safely tonight. It is hard to believe that its been four years since i first stood at this desk at spoke about what i hoped to achieve as governor. In that speech, if you remember, i promised you to work with you to build a new virginia economy, an economy that worked for everyone. That was a tall order if you remember, four years ago. The economic model that had served virginia well for decades had begun to crumble as our overreliance on federal spending left us exposed to shutdown, sequestration and significant defense cuts, many of the underpinnings of our economy, like our transportation, education, Workforce Development systems were in need of dire reform and investment. Scandal had shaken the faith of virginia public in their officials and damaged our reputation with employers all over the world. The agenda i presented to you in this chamber four years ago and every year after that was designed to solve those problems and to open up a new chapter of growth and opportunity in every single corner of our commonwealth. Four years later, we can all look back with pride on the record of accomplishments that we have by building the new virginia economy and building it together. We reformed how we would make transportation decisions, to prioritize their benefit to virginians in our economy over the desires of politicians. If you recall when i took office, virginia had just wasted 300 million, on rout 360, a road that was never going to be built. In contrast, thanks to our reforms, we are transforming the interstate 66 corridor, using no state dollars and saving our taxpayers 2. 4 billion. And just this morning, i announced a deal to extent the i95 hot lanes ten miles south to fredericksberg without asking the taxpayers to put up a single dollar for construction, in fact this project will require the builder to cut virginia a check for 277 million when this contract opens up. That is how you negotiate deals. We took the port of virginia, which had foolishly been put up for sale. We took it off the market and endured five straighters of losses before we took office. Today its profitable for the Third Straight year and now we were we took executive action. We took executive action to make virginia a leader in reducing carbon and combatting Climate Change and we have built a new Clean Energy Economy from the ground up, in addition we will be one of the first states in the nation to announce an offshore utility wind project, i am proud of the progress we have made in solar projects. When we took office, virginia was home to 17 megawatts of power, one of the lowest in america, today four years later, we have installed more than 2,600 megs under development or installed today in our great commonwealth. Even in our times of fiscal difficulty, im proud that we protected k12 education for budget cuts and we worked together to make the largest investment in education in the history of virginia. We reformed the standards of learning, we eliminated five tests, transformed our workforce Training Programs and redesigned our High School Curriculum to better align it with the needs of a 21st century economy. When democratraconian regulatio threatened to shutter all of virginia Womens Health clinics, we fought to preserve womens access to Quality Health care. We reformed our ethics laws, restored the people of virginias trust that we are here working for them, not for ourselves, we passed the first meaningful gun safety law in more than two decades. We expanded access to Critical Health services to people that needed it the most in virginia and we were the first state in the nation to bring an end to homelessness and we have 30,000 veterans with a new job here in virginia. We securedized our election system, we transformed our criminal Justice System that posted the lowest recidivism rate in the United States of america for the second year in a row. Now like any relationship, we have had our rough patches. I for one, to be honest with you, did not come into this job expecting the Republican Leadership of the General Assembly to sue me for concept over my reftor the first governor to receive such an honor only underscores what a truly historic four years this has been for virginia. [ applause ] even the justices are chuckling a little bit up front here. But despite a few bumps in the road, our Work Together has been defined far more by serious policy accomplishments, and the people of virginia are a better place for it, and i thank all of you. Every step we took tied back to our mission of building a new virginia economy and job creators are taking notice around the globe. As a testament to that, tonight, i am proud to announce that Service Center medals will invest 45. 2 million to expand its manufacturing operations in Prince George county. [ applause ] to the surprise of absolutely no one, we beat out the state of indiana for this great award. We will create 58 new jobs, and let me tell you why this announcement is so important to me personally. Because of the opportunity it will create for virginia families, but it also has a much larger significance tonight. With this project, and the over 1100 others we have announced during our four years, virginia has now attracted more than 20 billion in new Capital Investments since i took office. [ applause ] and not that any of you are counting, but that record exceeds any previous governor by 6. 5 billion. Service center medals cofounder, chip downs and the chairman of the Prince George county board of supervisors, allen carmichael, are here with us this evening. I want to say thank you for the confidence youve had. Stand up and lets give them a great round of applause. [ applause ] the investments, policy decisions, and Economic Development successes of the past four years have contributed to a new chapter of Economic Growth in our commonwealth. After 35 domestic and International Trade missions across five continents, we have seen virginias agriculture exports skyrocket 30 from 70 billion in 2014 to 91 billion last year. Tourism revenues have grown by 2. 2 billion since we took office. Personal income is up 12. 3 . Our initial unemployment claims have just reached a 43year low. There are now more than 200,000 more jobs in virginia than we took office in january of 2014. [ applause ] come on, you like jobs. I mean, come on. Jobs are bipartisan. There are no democrat and republican jobs. A job is a job. In 2017 alone, im proud to say we created 33,700 net new jobs, compared to 1,500 jobs that were created in the year before i took office. We have driven unemployment, folks, down to 3. 7 from 5. 4 when i took office. And im proud to say, in every single city and county in virginia, they have seen their unemployment drop in the last four years. [ cheers and applause ] folks, these are not just numbers. They are a reflection of the remarkable turnaround we have seen in the virginia economy over the past four years. They translate to real jobs and real opportunities for thousands of virginia families. As the most traveled governor in the nation, i can also tell you firsthand that they translate to even more economic activity, as we have told this amazing story to job creators all over the globe. Virginia is a different place than it was four years ago, and for that, we should all be proud. But theres still more work to be done. I may not be here to continue the battle, but the Budget Proposal that i am leaving behind reflects the enormous progress that we have made and the need to keep moving forward. If you remember, in my first year in office, we were forced to Work Together to deal with an inherited 2. 4 billion shortfall. Since then, our bipartisan cooperation and virginias strong Economic Growth have improved our financial fixture significantly. In fact, i know you all will be happy to hear that for the First Six Months of the current fiscal year, i announced today that revenue collections are up 5. 9 over last year, well ahead of our estimate of 3. 4 , which we had already revised upward, and you know what that means. That means that we are running nearly a half a billion ahead of our revised forecast heading into the final six months of the year. [ applause ] come on, get up. [ applause ] were talking money. Virginias Strong Revenue picture is a sign of a Strong Economy and the budget i presented builds upon that momentum. It invests in the modern economy like Public Education and workforce training. It strengthens our commonwealths response to our ongoing mental crisis as well as our opiate crisis. It advances the work we have done to diversify our economy so that we are no longer relying on one industry for our future Economic Growth. This is so important today because virginia is no longer just a Defense Industry state. Im proud to say today were a cyber state, an advanced manufacturing state, a Data Analytics state, a bioscience state, a Renewable Energy state and an Unmanned Systems state today. By making those right decisions and investments, we have built a new virginia economy, and the budget i leave you with will keep that momentum going. In addition to the budget, this year presents a very unique opportunity to move virginia forward on a number of issues that are important to the health, to the safety, and prosperity of the families that we all serve. Yesterday, governorelect northam and i stood together and outlined several pieces of legislation that we hope the new General Assembly will pass this year. They include reducing obstacles to voting by doing away with barriers to absentee voting. Building on the executive action that my administration has taken pursuing to cut carbon and create Clean Energy Jobs by becoming the First Southern state to formally join the regional Greenhouse Gas initiative. [ applause ] we need to close the loophole in our ethics laws by prohibiting the personal use of campaign funds. Finally, raising the threshold for felony larceny from 200 to 1,000 so that one mistake does not ruin a persons entire life. [ applause ] giving virginians the tools to manage student debt and hold predatory lenders accountable by passing a borrowers bill of right and keeping families safe from gun violence by requiring background checks for guns purchased here in the commonwealth of virginia. [ applause ] none of these items are inherently political. They are proposed solutions to real policy problems. It could well be the case that there are better ideas to solve these problems, and to make life better for our virginians. Those are the questions that were all elected to consider. We were not, however, elected to ignore problems like those or allow Real Solutions to become bogged down in the mud of partisan politics and special interests. As i look across this room, i see many new faces. The people of virginia in their wisdom have made significant changes to the composition of this General Assembly with a simple message in mind. Work together and get things done. [ applause ] this is the opportunity that the voters have given you, to do things differently than they have been done in the past, and to finally break the gridlock on issues where we havent made as much progress as we should have. The chief issue that demands your attention is making a clear statement that in a new virginia economy, health care is not a privilege for the few. It is a right for all. [ applause ] you can make progress on that goal by bringing our tax dollars back home to provide health care for nearly 400,000 virginians who desperately need it. The plan that i have submitted would create 30,000 new jobs and free up 422 million in our budget to invest in priorities like a state employee pay increase and a 427 Million Investment in putting our cash reserve fund. All without putting up a single dollar of virginia taxpayer money. As some of you may recall, expanding medicaid to cover working virginians who lack access to health care is an issue that i have felt very passionate about for the last four years. I will tell you this. I am passionate. Im passionate because i know as many of you do the benefit it would bring to our economy and to our budget. I am passionate because i have met hospital administrators in Rural Communities who say they need it to survive. Above all, im passionate because i have looked mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in the eye and heard how they cannot work. They cannot care for their families. They cannot live the lives they deserve because they cannot get the health care that they need. You can end the waiting. You can end the hurt. The worry for so many virginians and put them on a path to greater opportunity and greater productivity. You can shor