Here on cspan, we bring you more live coverage of the state of the state live from michigan. Members of the house and senate gather for the state of the state from republican governor rick snyder, who was sworn into office three years ago. Just a reminder as we wait for his speech to begin, we will re air some of the state of the state speeches we have covered in the past couple of days. Night, beginning on c span two, among the speeches you will hear, colorado, idaho, and indiana. That all gets underway tomorrow night at 8 00 eastern. Tonight, waiting to hear from Governor Snyder live from lansing. F sergeant at arms. Mr. Government, the governor of the state of michigan, the honorable rick snyder, the first family and the lady weight entrance into the joint convention. Will these special committee please escort the governor to the rostrum. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, please be seated. Thank you. Thanks, folks. Please, be seated. Thank you. Members of the joint convention, the governor of the state of michigan, rick snyder. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. You. Please be seated. Thank you. Thank you and good evening. Governor, lieutenant for that introduction. I would like to start by recognizing speaker boulder, richardajority leader and Senate Minority leader gretchen wentworth. We have three fine Public Servants that are completing their term of office with term limits, and i have asked for some recognition for these three fine Public Servants. [applause] it has been an honor to serve with them, and i look forward to a strong year coming up. Now i would like to recognize Lieutenant Governor brian kelly, my partner in the executive branch you has done an outstanding job. Thank you, brian. [applause] recognizeso like to House Minority leader graham holds, and i am looking forward to many years of working with him in a productive. Elationship area at [applause] i appreciate the recognition for everyone. There are a number of parties i also want to recognize that are also here, and i would like to begin with the members of the supreme court, the members of the court of appeals, secretary of state ruth johnson, our attorney general bill shoot he, the members of my, the state board of education, the ladies and gentlemen of the legislature and my fellow Public Servants. Also, i would like to give special recognition to several Service People who are with us tonight, and i asked that they rise when i say their name. Brigadier general johnstone. State command Master Sergeant dan lincoln. Lets give a round of applause. [applause] we owe a special thank you to every member of the service for what they are doing, what they have done in the past, and what theyre doing in the future. Tonight i am proud to report the number of Service People we have in the field. In 2013 at the end of the year, we had 657 Michigan National guard personnel and harms way. Quite by an amazing circumstance that i am very proud to report that as i am standing here now, we have zero Service People in harms way. [applause] unfortunately, that is not going to continue, despite the amazing circumstance that we were fortunate enough to get a large deployment back. People,continue to have and soon we will have 180 six National Guard members in the field, and they will have our thoughts and prayers. I would also like to mention that in 2013 we lost a service michigan. M s our thoughts and prayers are with his family. We also lost a Michigan State trooper. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. Also like to say thank you to the citizens of michigan for being here tonight. I would like to give a shout out to my family. Family, thanks for putting up with me. [laughter] [applause] as you all know, i dont know how to wear a tie, so sue clearly picked this out. I hope you like it. We have justson recently lost i wanted to mention, and that was the Lieutenant Governor of our state, connie been sealed. Connie been sealed was loved by many. Was a true role model for public service. She was a champion of childrens issues, and she set records in terms of womens roles in both the legislative branch and the executive branch of government. I would ask that we all give a moment of silence for connie. Thank you. I did not know connie well, but there is something i am anfident that connie would be supporter of. In recent days and months, we have had people make comments that were derogatory and negative towards other people. Publicly tonight, i would like to make a call to all citizens of michigan to ask us to have a andter degree of civility respect toward others of different backgrounds and different views. The future of michigan is dependent on having people findstand that we can Common Ground. Divideork together, not us. [applause] what i would like to do now is move to the main theme of tonight, the state of the state. This is a different state of the state, from my perspective. This is different. Final year of my first term in g ande of doing i address. I would like to have us look back at the last three years and look toward the future of michigan. Lets go back to before my term began. Decade, weo the last were broken. What did we lead the country and . Jobless this, reduced income levels and loss of population. In november of 2010, the citizens of michigan spoke, not just about my role, but many of us here tonight. They made a statement the michigan was broken. Fixing michigan was not good enough. It was time to reinvent michigan. A michigan to find with its brightest days ahead of us. That statement was made. We were hired to do a job. I am proud to report tonight that we are getting the job done. We are reinventing michigan. Michigan is the comeback state. We have come farther and further than any other state in the since theecovery biggest recession since the great depression, and we should be proud of that. Thank you for all your hard work. [applause] in terms of looking at 2013 in years,ears, and prior one thing i have done since my first date of the state address is to do a dashboard review. I think it is important because it really says how this come back has transpired. First of all, lets talk about jobs. In the last three years, we have added 220 1000 private sector jobs. Not only that, we have led the nation, we are number one in manufacturing jobs. For the First Time Since 2006, our labor force is actually growing in the state of michigan. That is something to be proud of. [applause] lets talk about personal income. How has per capita income done in the state of michigan . For the first three quarters of 2013, we were number one, tied with wisconsin, for Income Growth in the great states. We were number seven in the nation for growth in personal income. That is a whole lot better than being 50th, folks. [applause] , theiry families greatest asset in addition to their family is their home. In terms of home sales, they are 13 yearoveryear. We ranked number five in the nation in terms of improved home prices across the country. That is something to be proud of. In terms of our construction industry, housing permits and Building Permits are up when he seven percent, the highest level 27 , the highest level since the midto thousands. Again, progress. s. Mid2000 again, progress. We were the only state to lose population in the last decade according to the senses. How have we done yucca in 2002, we added people. Into how have we done . In 2002, we added people. In 2003, we added people. One other benchmark is interesting about who is staying and who is leaving. United van lines has done a survey for many years. For 16 years in a row, michigan was classified as a high outbound category. We have just been reclassified in the balanced category. , and were staying again should be proud of that. In terms of more and better jobs, lets get into specifics. I encourage you to go to the auto show in detroit if you have a chance. It is their 21st anniversary. They have the worldss best auto show. , auto production in michigan has doubled. We are at our highest level of production since 2005. Another industry critical to michigan is agriculture, and we are having great growth there. In 2010, it was a 91 billion industry. In 2013, it is a 96 billion dollar industry. It is on its path to being a 100 billion dollar industry. Agricultural exports from michigan to other countries grew by 16 . Agriculture is on a roll. [applause] i appreciate it. We had some farmers get up and leave that round. First program i want to talk about is connect. That is a Good Neighbor policy to ask Michigan Companies to buy more from Michigan Companies. The program is only two and a half years old. Impressive. Tely we now have over 24,000 companies signed up. In terms of incremental business instrumental to michigan, it now accounts for 1. 6 Million Dollars and 8000 jobs. Energy, dte energy were founding members. We just had an announcement from the auto show, ford announced 10 million in new contracts to Michigan Companies because of this program. [applause] i have a program i really want to spend a couple of minutes on because it is not just helping businesses succeed. It is helping the structurally unemployed. We put state resources behind this, working together. It is called Community Ventures, and Community Ventures is geared to give the structurally unemployed opportunities they did not otherwise have. Succeeding. Is we have placed over 1400 people in the last year. The oneyear retention rate is almost 70 , and we have 75 employers participating. One thing i will tell you i am really impressed with is the average wage for people in these pertions is over 11. 50 hour. I talk a lot about numbers, but i want to make sure everyone realizes we are talking about real people and their lives here. I am going to share a story now about Community Ventures. This happened up in flint. This is the story of two entrepreneurs that came together to say lets create a business, and they went on and got a partnership going with diplomat pharmacy, a fabulous company in the Health Care Industry in the flint area. What was that business . To say they can sell designer scrubs. Diplomat changed their dress code so more people could wear these scrubs. They kicked off this business. They now have 26 people working there. They have helped 700 other people find work. Their goal is to put 100 people to work. What i would like to have you do now is meet the two wonderful entrepreneurs. If my two wonderful entrepreneurs could stand up, you will have a chance to meet sister judy and sister carol from st. Lukes new life ministries in flint. Lets give them around of applause. [applause] thank you, sisters. Let me talk about education now. Let me start with something i believe everyone of us is passionate about, and that is Early Childhood education. Last year when i was here, we had gone out to see how many preschool kids did not have the opportunity to get a preschool education because of need. The number came out to be 29,000. That wasnt right. We couldnt solve the problem in one year in order to be fiscally responsible. I said lets do a 65 Million Investment in last years budget. He got tremendous support because people do believe in this cause. Openings this000 past year for those preschool kids. Thats fabulous. In fact, couple of days ago, a report came out the talked about early preschool education in the entire United States. You know who was at the top . Both in terms of percentage investment and dollar investment, the state of largest made the investment in preschool education in 2013 of any state in the United States. [applause] so let me share, again, this is a personal thing. This is not about numbers. So now, from Harrison ParkElementary School in grand rapids, i have a mother i would with her 25d children. In sixth grade. Brooklyn is in preschool and she thishat opening because of program. Thank you for being with us tonight. [applause] i will let you two girls decide which of you will be standing here someday giving a speech. The other thing is to say we. Ade half that commitment when you find my budget message coming to you this month, you find an additional 65 Million Investment, and we are going to make it a no wait state for Early Childhood education in the state of michigan. [applause] our Great Start Readiness Program has such great recognition. We won our first race to the top award of over 50 million from the federal government to supplement what we are doing. That shows we are among the best in the country, besides the biggest. In terms of k12 education, we need to invest. It is critically important. This is a product that has a lot of misinformation on it. I am here to set the record straight. I firmly believe in investing in k12 education, and i am proud to say in the last three years we have increased funding for k 12 each year to the point where invested 650 more per student than there was previously one i took office. That is a huge investment. [applause] you will find people saying it did not show up in the per dollar allowance. Let me clarify the record on that. Those dollars have been invested in k12. Over a billion dollars have gone into the School Employee pension plan. And why did it happen that way . As i think it is critically important that we properly fund our Pension Plans to make sure those 440 thousand School Employees and retirees can count on a solid pension and at the same time allow School Districts to put dollars in the classrooms instead of Pension Plans. It is the right answer, and we need to keep it up. Now one area we worked on that showed some Great Results was stem education. Some people may not be familiar with the term. Science, technology, engineering, math. It is critically important to our future. We need to encourage more people, particularly women, to go into that field. One of the programs we found is called first robotics. In terms of kids going to college, the average percentage that pic engineering as a major is six percent. For those that do first robotics, that number jumps to over 40 . Roboticsof first teams, michigan was among the leaders, but i thought it best that we lead the nation in first robotics. We added over 80 teams. We now lead the nation. We passed california. They are going to have to look in their rearview mirror. We are going to keep going and add more teams in this state. [applause] and again, to put a personal touch on it, it is great. With us. Team and we have a number of people. As i call your name, would you please stand . Teacher and director. William is the founder. And we have two students, holly and duncan. And 12th10th grade grade respectively. It is great to have a team here. One of the reasons i highlight this team is not only do they have this competition, but i want to complement their School District and their school. For thisived credit absolutely fabulous work and i hope that can happen to every team in the state, so lets give a round of applause to that team. [applause] on the people front, on health care, first of all i want to mention the Blue Cross Blue Shield reform i did with strong support from you, our legislators. It was not only strong reform, but we were able to create a Health Endowment fund that will improve health care for kids, seniors, cross containment and access to health care. That was great legislation. Another item i want to mention in terms of great healthy michigan is about bringing Health Coverage to hardworking michigan residents who deserve health care coverage. And a special shout out to senator con, representative shirkey, representative lori, and the entire house and Senate Delegations from the democratic caucuses. Thank you for your strong support and thank you for making that happen. [applause] and let me talk about some of our citizens with special needs. One that strikes all of our heart, our children, on adopted children in particular. One of our goals is to find every adopted child to measure the have a forever family. How have we done . Andou go back prior to 2013 2012, the average percentage of kids who were available versus who got adopt it ranged between 56 and 70 . There were a lot of kids left looking. Proud to announce that in 2013 we achieved 88 of the kids looking for a family, and there is a Firm Commitment for Public Private bishops to make that we haveo to 100 , but had tremendous progress in helping those kids. [applause] veterans. To do more. We were asked about them in terms of how we service them in many respects. What have we done . We established a new agency, the veteran affairs agency. Moreve tried work much closely with veteran service organizations. We achieved accreditation at the state level to process benefit plans. We have done jobs fairs, making tremendous progress on this front. Am particularly proud of is helping Homeless Veterans. Particularly if they are a veteran. I was able to go to a place called the silver <