Nations health care problem. We plan to take your phone calls this morning. We have tried to take your phone calls. Thank you to all of you that have called in. If you missed any of what the president has to say, it will reair tonight. We will take your questions about your health care exchanges. Facebook. Com cspan where you can weigh in. Xers of the health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. He worked for duke energy for quite a few years. An event withg to kathleen civilians. All of these things do a very good job of preparing someone to be the governor of the 10th largest state in the country. Welcome, governor. [applause] thank you very much. Great to see so many people. It is great. Have ae are going to great conversation and there are so many things on my list. Tell us a little bit, if you governingt your principles. What do you think about when you think about governing a state as large and diverse as North Carolina . Lex one principle may surprise you in one that i bring from the private sector that i do not think you talk about enough in the state capital or washington dc, and that is operations. One thing people forget about is the executive of the 10 largest of the United States of america. Not enough focus but on operational issues. Everyone tends to talk about policy and politics, but i think one of the major challenges of this country and many states is how do you get the work done in an efficient and effective way cap go were seeing that with obamacare right now. The debate about obamacare was largely about policy. That there was very little discussion about how will it be implemented, and what are the details of implementation . What are the ramifications . I see that in State Government also. When i came into office january of this year, 80 of my cabinet meetings were about operational issues. Some of the civil protections for state workers and how do you reward good state workers and deal with state workers that might not be doing a good job . How do you deal with transportation issues . Is the policy based upon where do we need the roads or the politics of road building . Therefore we have to think about the operational issues. We have budget issues from an operational standpoint. We have many budget issues. Are we really dealing with the the day . Et issues of are we doing a true accounting of what the unfunded liabilities off thehe books and books . Those are operational issues executives are dealing with every day. At the Heritage Foundation and Us Government need to talk about operational issues. The other two or three basic things required for my cabinet is a six. That was my first requirement, we must do what is right. Requirement is we have to work at a team work as a team. Inhave to work as one team the most effective and efficient operation as possible. The third is to initiate policies that have a longterm impact on the state. We should be thinking like business people, but realize we are in a tough political environment. A lot of times we do not think about operational issues, especially the young old to put operational skills into place into thinking. Were doing a review of dmv right now. What that her area to think about a retail customer when you walk in, what is your First Impression as you wait an hour and 45 minutes to get a simple renewal of the drivers license . The First Impression of government. Doing hopefully making it customerfriendly experience. You were also at the cusp of a historic time in North Carolina where for the first time in over 100 years you have a republican governor and republican majority in the state house, the delegates and senators. That changed the outlook about how your party and administration go about doing business . I still have the same answer whether it is republican or democrat. I still have the parameters of ethics and longterm solutions and breaking down carriers and political turf. Whether you are in one party or not, you will still have those issues you will have to deal with. Great working with a teen. I would say in my first nine months in office, we got 80 of what we wanted them the Republican House and senate, a pretty good track record. There were some things that i disagreed. The most dynamic tax reform we saw in the nation in the past four or five years. The only state in the nation that did tax reform, but it was not easy. I had some people on the one side who wanted to Institute Tax reform, and i did not think the numbers added up. As a conservative tom i want to make sure the numbers add up and do true accounting and make sure we have a balanced budget in the long run and trying to stimulate the economy. I have required them to compromise and i had to compromise some, but in doing so ,e came up with the magmatic reasonable tax reform that frankly stepped on the toes of everyone a little bit but we knew we had to change to become not only competitive with the nation and world, but i have to beat nikki haley and Bill Mcdonald next door to me. We have good republican governors that are my friends and competitors. We are fighting for jobs against each other. In doing so, i will respect what virginia and tennessee are doing , but as i have told nikki, we will beat you for jobs. She thinks the same way. We act as though we are private sector are competitors. Also partners and energy. It sounds to me. It sounds to me as though you up deeply engaged in coming with legislation working with andlegislative branch having the view that principles cannot be compromised but preferences are where we can work out differences. I asked her with my legislature, i asked her on preareas. Frankly, everything outside of that area. I wanted to focus on the economy and government and deficiencies. And in doing so, i asked for tax reform and we help resent a major tax reform plan. We asked for transportation reform. Implemented the first in since 1988. We asked for major reform in commerce. Confusion in my Commerce Department in dealing with customers, new customers and existing customers. We had all of these middle p all involved and need to streamline it. We will privatize part of my Commerce Department. This is what some would call for radical change. I think it is pragmatic change. Preks that sounds exciting. Tell us about the Commerce Department reform. What was happening is we had a lot of different compartments departments that were set up many years ago for good reason. Charlotte regional partnership. We had all of these different groups working for commerce, but efficientoordinated, and effective manner. It also had a lot of overhead. The customer was confused, who do we talk to if were interested in investing in North Carolina . We have to talk to all of these different groups that no one person is in charge. We are putting these people under one umbrella and privatizing the marking of North Carolina. Let me turn about Economic Growth, tourism and things like that tom a to transportation. We thought about what they should do well. And the infrastructure to do those in goods and services to move not only the commonwealth. Tell us about transportation reform . I am an infrastructure fan. Government has a major role in infrastructure. I consider myself an eisenhower republican. I do not think we as republicans talk about the white david thousand eisenhower enough. He was an American Hero and a great president for two terms. What he did was bring up out bring about a vision for the future. He connected the east with the west with the highway system, which we are still enjoying today. To me im a wellspent federal money but with a vision enacting the economy and commerce with government responsibility for infrastructure. 1950s, we still see the results of that. I took that same philosophy as mayor charlotte mayor of charlotte. I introduced in 1956 in a structural infrastructure plan. They are now on the 18th or 19th year of the plan. It is showing results. What we did is we show the taxpayers exactly what the plan was before the taxpayers were asked to invest in it. Resent the to do is 25 year and even fiftyyear infrastructure plan in four areas. Transportation, energy, water him and communications. Always dangerous to say i have three or four ideas. You are afraid to forget one these days. I think we as republicans, need to present a vision for the next generation. A vision of where transportation will take us and how it will come back connect commerce and trade to jobs and show the plan in 3d. This is the plan for the next 50 years, your kids and grandkids. Then we need to do the same thing with communications, especially rural areas. Rural america is turning right now. The Unemployment Rate is 1525 . In northal towns carolina and throughout the United States. We have to connect them to the Economic Centers of the world and one way to do that is through communications and infrastructure. Same thing with energy. If we did not have cheap and Reliable Energy in our country in the future, we will suffer. That is what help to build manufacturing and our nation. Right now i have no idea what the energy plan is for our nation but part of my job is to present an energy plan for the state of North Carolina. It is very exciting because in all of our areas there is much the private sector can do to governmentide ideas like this. Absolutely. The prospect for trucking firms to infrastructure firms, they want to be at the table. I think they there are incredible opportunities for publicpartnerships for the building of new roads. Should not be all government. Should be incentives to build a quicker, faster and even have hot lanes where money is paid in certain ways. Most Companies Know if you do not have the infrastructure for the future, they will not move here. You have to have the ports, highways, and rail. This is what stays for generations. The biggest mistake i think this administration made, and i said this in an editorial when i was with the stimulus money, almost 1 trillion in stimulus money, most people think it was spent on infrastructure, when in fact very little was spent on infrastructure. They spent money on infrastructure that is still with us today. Six we did during the past years is we put money on short term infrastructure, repaving roads or widening the road a little bit. The money is gone. That is borrowed money, which your kids and grandkids will pay on for many years to come. That would have been an excellent opportunity to show a vision for the future, which would stay while you pay the debt. Now you pay the debts of potholes that have to be refilled again. That is basically what i said in the wall street journal article six or seven years ago, and sadly that has come to fruition. Preks as we talk about infrastructure being important for economic element, so too is an educated citizenry. One of the first policies i talked about when i ran in 2008 in a i lost the governorship 2008 during the eight president ial election time, but he stressed there is not enough emphasis on Vocational Training and Technical Training in math and science training. Right now i think one of the biggest dangers to the United States of america is there is no one to replace the baby boomers that are engineers or technicians. Even with a high Unemployment Rate in our country, there are job openings for mechanics, electricians. They pay a lot more money than a lot of Fouryear College degrees at this point. I think we as a country have misled young people in saying the only way to success is to have a four year College Degree. I think that is a great way to success, but i think another to get a two technical degree or certification. Very similar to what you see in germany the past 2020 five years. Well respected, seen as prestigious. I think we need to do the same thing in america, and our economy has to have it. Companies have to have the next how toion understand and fix things in innovate something. We are not talking about that enough area i think we got caught up in a little academic elitism thinking everyone had to have a masters degree. The economy does not even need everyone to have a masters degree. We need the master plumbers and master electricians. I used to tell a story where i had a person put new wooden floors down in my house. He was working his tail off. Have you ever seen someone put down wooden floors . You have to understand geometry and algebra. It is a science. He deserved it. He had a scale of which the market needed at this point. That is an area of education reform. The first bill i signed as governor was a vocational career path degree for High School Students, a curriculum for High School Students in which they or vocational curriculum. By the way, you can change your mind. One curriculum is not easier than the other, just different. We should respect each one. I think it is an important point to underscore here, not only are you emphasizing the option, but students and their differentn make choices as students mature and change ideas in mind. That is huge. A lot of people start locational training and end up starting a business. They might get a College Degree and masters degree in business to help them run a business that they started. Ngs happened in different orders. I have seen a lot of Fouryear College students go back to a twoyear school. I have a nice bike ride to a did from east to reline at university and went back to get her nursing degree at the vocational school. Does not have to always happen in the order that we seem to think the institutions require. The market might demand the order. You have also done some things to help students who might be in failing schools. No doubt about it. We have to start measuring results. One of the first things we did not paychool, we ought Government Funds to a school based upon how many students the have, but what are results . What are the result of reading and math and basic schools and graduation records but also the results of getting the kids jobs . So what we did for example with the twoyear community colleges, we change the formula where we reward those classes that cost more, that have a smaller volume of kids in those classes, but job have about 100 placement rate. We should not punish them because it costs more. In Technical Training funds for smaller classes that have high your job placement. We ought to think about higher job outcome. We are thinking longterm. How about the tuition Tax Credit Scholarship Fund . We are doing several things. I am a big promoter of charter schools. Most people do not know that these are Public Schools. Are a lot of mischaracterizations of charter schools. They are Public Schools. We also have a voucher system. I call it a scholarship system. Met cannot get their needs due to the Public School maybe not having what they need. So were doing a lot of different things. We also want to do pay for performance for our teachers. Were are instituting a system whichwe will get feedback will help the government come up with ideas on how to reward teachers. All of us go to school and the principals and teachers know who the Good Students are. Everyone knows who is a good teacher, bad teacher, easy teacher. We all knew it. We need to start rewarding good teachers. We want to do, pay for performance systems. Startk we also need to paying math and science teachers more money based upon the market because they have a higher attrition rate. That can change year in and year out. I was a recruiter or duke power company. More basedou pay upon what the marketplace is. Sometimes you pay a business major more than a liberal arts major. I think we need to adjust the pace standards to education also. It varies yearbyyear. Isone of the areas heritage deeply involved is the issue of common core. I know in North Carolina the legislation or passed legislation putting common core in place. As we understand from some of our allies around the state, review getting critical and perhaps reexamination. Is that something youre Education Team is taking a look at . Actually an advocate as of common core as an emphasis on math and science. If we do not get at her in math and science, basic reading, we will not be competitive with the rest of the world. I think our standards should be worldwide. The problem is in the implementation and testing. There are over 100 tests that are given by teachers and are aw only testing teaching by test. I think that is far too many tests. I think 13 more were added due to a race for federal grants that were extended. One reason they got that was because the test of common core. You cannot just ask teachers to do only tests. I think the problem is not common core, the problem off and is in the implementation of common core and thinking this way in terms of instead of bigger picture. I am or virginian. We are competitive and we think our standards are better than the national standards. We maye to be careful, be competing with you. The states should determine their standards. Every state standards should be a worldwide standard that that are get better in math, science, and basic reading. That is what is hurting our country. No it is not heritage takes lightly. We watched the District Of Columbia education system. Firsthand that so many Young Children are force