Again as our nominee says. You want to be part of that. Im grateful for you being here and spending your time here. I want to talk a little bit about Republican Leadership. Those of you who lived in michigan a long time you understand this. I mean we had a lost decade where we floundered. Were on the bottom of every list you wanted not to be on the bottom of that list or the top of the good list. Were at the wrong end of those lists. Under Republican Leadership, republican house, senate, and governor, just look at the benefits. Our unemployment under 5 . When is the last time you could talk to one of your kids about unemployment being under 5 in michigan. Ottawa county, where i represent, 2. 9 . They cant find people to do the work. Were turning the state around. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of time and Republican Leadership. The state gained more private sector jobs than any other great lakes state, over 400,000. That is not what, we dont create jobs. We just set the atmosphere in taxation and regulation so people are encouraged to risk their capital, get return on their investment. They see that in michigan. Thats a great place to do it. [applause] and i can tell you, i know you believe it too, america will be greater under Republican Leadership, right . Isnt that right . [applause] so it is our responsibility as a michigan delegation to spread that love and information our other delegate friends here. Ohio, similar, michigan, similar under a comeback. All of things were doing under Republican Leadership to make that so. We need to spread that were encouraging the rest of the delegation. So it is important to support the republicans. Let me stop for just a minute and come back and talk about the state of michigan. I want you to keep this phrase in your head, six teen, equals 18, equals 20. Okay. In 2016, you have 25 house members that are up, seats are up. We need your help making sure we have republicans to come back and we have majorities in 2018, 19 out of the 27 senators are term limited. We have to make sure we keep the michigan senate. If we keep the governorship in the 2020, we get to draw the lines again next decade. That is why it is important. We have to retain those majorities to have the opportunities to draw the lines, to keep progress going for michigan. You all will be invested, lock the doors, make the phone call, write the check, put up the yard sign, all the stuff you need to do to make sure we retain republican majorities. I know youre up for the task. So a decade of recession or more has put us in this spot. The gains have been great and dramatic and i mentioned some of them but how many of you actually feel it for your family . Almost everybody you know has a job. Right . Maybe not the one they want but they have a job. As opposed to number of years ago, our kids and grandkids and our friends were going to other states because opportunity was greater. Were creating opportunity and having a great time doing it. I started to talk about what else i wanted to talk to you about this morning, what is heavy in our minds is safety and security of our country. As we think about that were concerned for our families and concerned for ourselves and concerned for our country. Before i go on and make a couple comments before the governor comes here and i thought i would pause and pray for a minute. Lets ask gods blessing on the country and our state. Remember a number of years ago when we were struggling, we were in a Small Group Bible study, representative fulton sheen stopped the group said, you know what . We need to pray for gods mercy on michigan. I think we need to stop and pray for gods mercy on the United States. If you would pray for me for a few minutes. Our great heavily father, were concerned as a country, concerned as Leaders Within our party and our family that this country is under attack, spirit allly, physically, emotionally. We ask for your guidance, ask for your care. We ask for your comfort. And as were pausing today, we ask that for our families as well. We love this country. We know that if we turn our face to you, you will bless this country. So please do that. And as were walking through our day, as were going on, going out to take on the convention, i want you to walk alongside of us, to befriend us, walk behind us, to encourage us. Be above us, to watch over us, beneath to us carry us when were having a difficult time. The most importantly to be inside of us so that we reflect your love as we go out on to a sinful and broken world and try to encourage your love for other folks. All these things we ask in jesuss name, amen. All right. Dont see that the governors arrived yet. Didnt get the high sign. So i get a few more minutes, all right . Theyre turning cameras on now. Now its bad. Normally i would have in my pocket, and i forgot it this morning, i take the folder out the governor has and unfold it of the 1000 things weve done in michigan to make it better. That list is now up to almost 1800 different things. We have a number of folks that have served as representatives and are serving as representatives and senators in this room and they all took those very, very courageous votes to make michigan a better place. I want to thank them for their hard work. You dont get to be the leader of a caucus without folks that want to put you there and help them make decisions and encourage you. I want to thank them for doing that. A number are in the room today. We have a great opportunity for this state to show what a state on turnaround does. Gave kasich has done that here in ohio as well. How many of you remember when we were talking about the 1. 8 billion in deficit . Yeah . We now have many are 3 4 of a billion dollars in our piggybank. That is the stuff we do, right . Pay our bills, pay our bills, prioritize our spending and make sure that were investing in things that are going to make michigan that great state where people want to come, want to invest and put their time and effort in. Ron will take a picture. You want me to stop to take a picture. [inaudible] thanks. Too much shine on there from the thing . Okay . All right. Great. So the governor has not quite here yet. Im okay to take a couple questions. How about that . Anybody got a question or two . Yes, sir. We all have to go back to our districts go over the activity what is happening in lansing, tell us how we address the question of spending far more than the previous administration, growing the government, acting more like democrats, how can we get people encourage renewing the vote the representatives that are supposed to be reducing government. Sure. Lets start with when you actually pay down debt, it comes on the expense side. When our expenses go up, is because were paying down debt. We paid almost a billion dollars of debt. Taxes are going up too. They have changed. They have changed, no doubt, no doubt. We had to make some really difficult decisions because of the previous administration. Im not casting blame. The governor doesnt either but, spending and prioritizing, make sure education, public safety. We put more cops, state police back in these very, very dangerous areas. We had on the fbi list the most dangerous cities, michigan had five, five cities in the top 10, most dangerous. We put a lot of effort into public safety, all of those things. And do i like doing the things that we had to do . Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But theyre necessary. You do them in your family. You prioritize your spending f you need to do something, maybe cant afford the cadillac but you buy the chrysler 200. You do the things you need to do to make sure it works well. Now as we continue to do these things and put money away in savings, do those types of things, well have ability to look attacks structure, regulatory structure. One of my goals is to get us out of the pension system. We dont do well in the pension system. I point out to you when they changed that for representatives senators, most state employees, we saved nearly 3 billion. That debt would be on top of what were talking about today. So we prioritize the spending and we do it the correct way. Dont spend into oblivion or use the credit card to make house paints. That is a good question, by the way. It is difficult. It is difficult. Leading is difficult. It is challenging. You dont get everything you want. You dont get it perfectly. If it was, you would run, sir and you would want to do that. We voted for tax reduction on roads and we didnt get it. Here is the other thing. [applause] the opportunity probably eluded us 20 years ago when they did the taxation difference on gasoline, they didnt include inflation escalator. If they had done that, we would have that 900 to a billion dollars. So a policy decision further back didnt work out very well. Now we put that inflation factor in there. Were going to invest because we need to make sure goods and Services Travel on our roads safely and get to the right place so we have ability to do all of those things so. Yes, sir. All the unemployment is still low, because there are more people on welfare now and entitlements and things like that . No. Actually, we are one of the states now that put the limits on for your welfare benefits. Youre ablebodied gone through the system, after four years you no longer get benefits. Weve been saving that money using that too to put in education. Nationally can i say that . I dont know. But in michigan i know that has gone down dramatically, dramatically and i think joe, are you in here . Joe, this is your bill, right . This is fourth year it has taken effect. We have some of the lowest people, lowest welfare rates in the great lakes states right now. John . [inaudible] you and your group down in lansing. What issues do you look forward to tackling and do you view as biggest issues on your agenda. The questions what are issues we will be tackling when we get back . What i think michigan needs to be, beacon obviously in the in the midwest and states. We have new technologies coming forward, Autonomous Vehicles, all other things, new and different economy what weve been doing before. We have to be able to have infrastructure to do some of those things. Those are cool new jobs, if youre figuring out Autonomous Vehicles and other services around that, keep the brains of that here, more likely to keep Auto Industry and manufacturing here which is a big part of michigan. So forwardthinking things. So we look inviting to companies and Tech Companies switch, you know. Icloud in michigan. Grand rapids, michigan, things like that. Were looking very heavily at pension reform to get the rest of the pensions out and put them on defined contribution which i think is terrific, the way we should go. There are a couple of things. We have a fair amount of things to do around auto no fault. We have some of the highest Auto Insurance rates. We dont agree how to get that done yet but a lot of work to do around that. David . Question, how do you justify Medicaid Expansion and what is that going to cost the state in future. I dont have those numbers with me, david, but, i think the governor undercalculated how many people would take advantage of it. What i do know in the future, when people are healthier, theyre not going to access going to Emergency Care and things like that. So i dont know the numbers. Whether theyre healthier they will not go to the emergency room which is the highest cost care that we have. How do you justify passing obamacare and Medicaid Expansion. We passed Medicaid Expansion because it is part of medicare. We wouldnt say it is part of obamacare but i understand your point. One more. Yes, senator. The state committee passed a resolution couple of months back to put a halt to Refugee Resettlement coming into michigan and im wondering where is the legislation on this and what are you guys doing to put a halt to this, and stop inflow of all of these folks coming in. Well the governor sat down with the leadership, said look, they dont have a good way to vet those folks coming in. Well do as much as we can to make sure we dont get a flood of them. So there is a few coming in. I dont know we legislated anything but as the executive has said well not bring in people we cant vet. He has that working through colonel of the state police and other folks and i cant say exactly what it is he is doing to do that but i know he is very, very concerned about it and doesnt want to be overrun by folks in this state. So he is very, very concerned about [inaudible]. I dont know when they are going to lead. My time is up. Appreciate so much youre here. Thanks for what youre doing for michigan. Appreciate it so much. Thank you. [applause] okay. So i think weve learned one thing from our dellgation meetings. That governors really cant get to places on time. What do you think . Governor christie, governor kasich, where are they . So how many of you loved arlans party yesterday . [applause] well that is not good enough for the type of party. How many of you loved arlans party yesterday . [applause] when i, i love that beatles fan, are i in of you beatles fans . [applause] i thought i would share a little beatles story in my life. Im not old enough to really been around during the beatles mania, my grandpa George Romney, do i in of you remember George Romney . One thing he did, each grandchildren turned 12, he had about 26 grandchildren, maybe 23, as a group, any grandchildren were turning 12 he would take us on a monthlong trip around this country to show us his love his love for america. I went with my two cousins, tag and brent romney, and my brother george. I was pretty much tortured the whole time. However we traveled from washington, d. C. , to banf, to yellowstone, to yosemite, across the nation in a van eating egg salad sandwiches with pickles in them. He really wanted to instill in in us the profound love for this country. How the beatles tie in, my grandfather only brought one tape for the car, is was mormon tabernacle choir. We poor kids were dying. We were like, we can not listen to the mormon tabernacle choir one more time. So when we got to utah, we had this aunt, aunt ruth think. And i didnt know her very well. But as we were leaving, she passed us a tape and it was the beatles. Just beg him. I bet he will let you play it. And we just, barda, that is what we called George Romney. You have to let us listen to the beatles. We listened to the beatles the whole rest of that trip. Yesterday, whenever i go to events where i hear the beatles i think of that trip. I think also about the love that all of us have in our families for this country. We all grew up with those types of stories. Something that we remember when we decided, or we came to that profound love for this great, unique, special, nation. And, we, i know you all have it. Because you wouldnt be here if you didnt. You wouldnt go knock doors and make calls and talk to random strangers and give your time if you didnt care so much about this country. And our state. And i certainly have that too. It was such a great experience for me. And i wanted to just thank arlan for letting me relive that a little bit yesterday. The other thing he did he sped a lot. Do any of you speed . He was a very scary person to drive with. You never want to drive with him. But everywhere we got pulled over, if we ever got pulled over, which we did, he would say, yes, im governor George Romney from the state of michigan. Most of the times it got him out of the tick contest. But not every time. Another thing, im stretching. I did this yesterday. The other thing is, he was given at one point in his life a little flimsy piece of paper that gave him a lifelong pass to mcdonalds to get a drink, a hamburger and fries, okay . Only my grandpa would go laminate that pass, okay . [laughter] and he laminated it and tucked it in his wallet. Everywhere we went around the country, we went to mcdonalds. There was no other eating option. It was always mcdonalds. And he made sure he got his free drink and his free fries and his free hamburger. Almost every time the manager, the person at the window would look at it, and then we would have the manager come to the window, and they would look at it, finally they would give in because they had never seen anything out of it. My dad, that is the one thing we asked for when he passed, where is the lam minute nated mcdonalds card . That is the only thing we wanted. I dont know where it is. I think my brother george has that. I will just share George Romney stories because he was a profound influence in my life. Also when he turned 80 he was not a flashy guy. There was nothing flashy about him. He had a watch he kept together with bind every binder clip, okay. He never wore fancy clothes. You would never think this was the former governor of michigan. At one point we did a barda fashion show. All the grandchildren put on shirts he had been wearing for 40 years. He didnt think that was very funny but we thought it was funny. One of them is framed in our cottage in canada. It is faded but we call it barda wear. He did when he was 80 years old he took us all to washington, d. C. But it was an amazing formative experience for us. So just as we are here today and we are here this week, and its fun to party and have fun. I know some of us are in a healing face. I know we are not all there yet and thats okay. Thats okay. But i know something that we all have in common. We care about this country. What we are doing is a profound privilege. Think about what we are doing. We are nominating the next president of the United States. In a time when our country is in profound turmoil. Hope we have a leader has taken us down a treacherous path. We are the people who are going to right the ship. [applause] this is a privilege. It is an honor. I feel so grateful to be here with all of you. I feel this special mantle that we all have on us. So as we are coming together and as we are working together, i know we are not all there. But how do we get the people there who are not there yet . Isnt my point in the face and screaming at them . Not. Weve got to give them hugs, right . I dont mean that but talking about and being respectful. Because i know that once we see that first debate between Hillary Clinton and donald trump, and he talked to about where shes going to lead this nati