Transcripts For CSPAN National Governors Association Winter Meeting 20180224

Protecting your family, protecting your community, that is what this is about. Liberals,s what these those progressives or whatever they call themselves they are quite frankly social democrats, maybe even communists [applause] that is what they are trying to go out that after. How dare they point our fingers their fingers at us. We are on the right side. As you go back to your schools, campuses, and communities, go back with a stern backside, knowing that you are on the right side of our constitution, the right side of history, and the right side of god. [applause] with this terrible, terrible situation in florida, the president was here and gave a speech. Said unlike the politicians that want to point fingers of blame and say oh, this is the nra and all that nonsense, that he is going to do something. Of the things that many of us within the movement have been talking about, there is a number , a number policeman of retired veterans that would love the opportunity to protect children in our schools. What do you think about that idea . All, let me start with describing the president s speech as kick but was that a good distinction . Version. Pg i dont know if we have done this, because i am in and out of rooms already. Folks that have been with Law Enforcement or are a First Responder or military or former military, show of hands, and those of us in the room. Thank you, thank you. [applause] everybody,king to including whatever viewing audience we have, but i will be talking about you. Should why i thought we point you out. I am the president of the National Republican assembly, so i believe we should protect our , andren, all of our babies beginning at the start of this, i will go back to a fundamental breakdown of the family. After eight years of obama, we have lost confidence in the christent and we allowed to be get out of our schools. Of our schools. Simply being allowed to carry a firearm is a deterrent. To failguys do not want in whatever their mission is. They will go wherever it is easiest. The goal would be to protect your facility more than the other guy. That is the whole u. S. Antiterrorism and anticrime philosophy. If you are in facility, the guy will go somewhere else because you cannot out everything. Going forward, what do we want to do . We want to at least have this discussion now, whether our schools need to be more secure. I am conservative, many of you are. I think this discussion has to engage the big picture. This week, a week after the park when shooting, in which all of us are still emotional, this week planned parenthood murdered more babies. [applause] policies banned firearms inm lawabiding citizens chicago, baltimore, detroit, and the carnage on our streets continues. That all has to be part of this discussion. But in the big picture, do i believe that we can have soldiers, Law Enforcement operators who are trained and experienced help to secure our schools . Absolutely. Absolutely. [applause] thank you. Graham, i will get you back in here, a followup to my first question. What are the consequences of the Supreme Court not taking up the case of the filling that second part of the Second Amendment and reining in these federal courts that are often upholding the state legislatures law that are very gun prohibitionists. That is a good point. This the the purpose of the Supreme Court is to police the legislature on the bill of rights. If the state passed a law that violated, the Supreme Court would intervene and say you cant do that. But since the mcdonnell ruling, the one that made heller applicable to the states, the Supreme Court has seen about two dozen Second Amendment cages third amendment cases and for them in theyre leaving that open for the state. What we need for the Supreme Court is to build out that practical activities around the Second Amendment, cant go to a can i go to a gun range, can i take my boy hunting in texas with an ar to shoot hogs . Until that happens, we will have vulcanized rulers. It will be one way in california, one way in texas. We do not have it that way for due process. You have the same rights arrested in texas as you do in california. The First Amendment is the same thing. Theconsequences of that second series of consequences, in my opinion, are more long term. If we as a country can decide s rights are unfavorable at a particular point in time and limit them, there is not a restraint on the same thing happening 100 years from now, 10 years from now on another right. We have seen that in our history already. When it comes to race, when it comes to gender, and how rights are used. These rights are there to protect, example, the First Amendment is not there to protect popular speech, it is there to protect unpopular speech. When things become unpopular, and there is a big group saying no, we do not want that anymore, that is when the right is there to stop it. The secondappen to amendment, it can happen to others. So people and the courts disregarding the significance of that individual right has implications for the longevity of freedom in this country. I do not think it is limited now. We learned that lesson, and later it is applied to other things. What i am interested in is what did this country look like 100 years from now . Now as well for my kids and their grandkids, but one of 50 years ago, somebody cared about what this country look like now. And we need to care about what it looks like down the road, and that means protecting these rights. [applause] it was it unusual for Justice Thomas to come out publicly and chastises peers chastised his peers for not picking up more supreme Second Amendment cases . Anyone to read this, it is eminently readable. As a long discussion of the question of rights. He has pointed out is a state has a 10 day waiting period on an abortion, he think that case will get her like that. If it is a 10 day wait on a handgun which is what they dealt with on the sylvester case you cannot get a review on it. There is a very articulate narrative in there about pointing out that we are not treating this right the way we do every other right, and that is a problem for us. We are wrapping up this , this questionie is coming to you. We are talking about the future of the Second Amendment, but i know my father, may he rest in heaven, and said to me thank you. [applause] this is an insurance policy for us, and all nine of the bill on thets arrest rest Second Amendment. If the Second Amendment goes away, we have other ones that will go away eventually as well. When we talk about the future of the Second Amendment, we are not talking death we are talking about the future of the country. Im going to be gender partisan here, and say the future of the Second Amendment and our country , doesnt rest on women . Does it rest on women . They are the critical demographic. If we win women, empower women and let them know this is about protection, not aggressive violence, but protecting their family, protecting themselves, can we win this thing . When we get women together on a cause, ladies, what happens when you are put on a task . [indiscernible] you get it done, and you get it done with passion, right . Voice ofan police the the unleash the voice of the female gun owner and their passing it torrys passionate stories, it is a game changer. The media knows that. They are afraid of that. I just did an interview with 60 ghtutes, and i brou three women with me that day none of it was aired. This was on cbs a week or two ago. We were so articulate and responsible and passionate and normal and normal. Show it, because it was the wrong message, not what they wanted to show. I think it is important, and i think we have to counter the groups like moms demand or every town, whatever they call themselves, the bloomberg group. Their messages that women with guns are dangerous. You could get hurt with it. You are not strong enough, you cannot handle that. And that is because they are afraid of us too. They know the power of the womans voice and our activism, and they are shackling us to that bondage of fear and to victimhood. What kind of womens rights is that . What kind of equal of them that is not a quality eq ualism that is not equality. We can have choice over our bodies and what happens to it, we can be president , and i want the choice over what happens to my body so i can defend it. Ladies, call to action, take someone shooting. It does not have to be a woman. Take someone shooting, that is my call to action for you. How many ladies are going to go shooting . Raise your hand. [applause] i think they all did, outstanding. Think of a better way to this wonderful panel please, ladies and gentlemen, give this wonderful panel, raham, acarrie, g wonderful round of applause. Remember, you are on the right side and in the right place. Greatest feedback ever. Thank you and god bless you. [applause] our next conversation is with the office and budget manager mick mulvaney, hosted by dineen of the conservative review. Someone told me backstage about a certain pair of socks mr. Mulvaney is wearing. Captain america. Thank you for coming out today. Todays discussion we are going areas,s on three core regulation, the budget, and tax cuts. In 15 minutes. We are going to start with regulation. I understand reducing regulation is one of the president s Top Priorities for his administration. It is something we dont hear enough about. We have heard a lot about tax cuts, which we will get into. In regards to regulation, it works handinhand with the rollback in taxes and regulation. Can you give us a Progress Report on what has been done . The reason i am hearing much about it is because it is going well. The president would like to say it is going well. [applause] we try to talk about it every chance we get. The last time we tallied it up, it was about 1500 obama era regulations delayed, stalled, killed, or Something Like that. We are going to do more in the next year. If it was quick to put in a regulation, thats why you saw this flurry across all of the agencies, because the Obama Administration had done a lot of things on the way out the door that was easy to undo. The really big stuff, the stuff they worked hard on, the clean power plants, waters of the u. S. , stuff that took years to get in place will take just as long to get out. We have already started that, i dont think you will see as much deregulation, but you will start to see the really big pieces of the puzzle come together. The impact has been tremendous. Talking tooverseas american chambers of commerce. Anywhere they go in the world, they said the optimism amongst American Business has never been higher. They think it has as much to do with deregulation as it does with taxes. [applause] played role has the onb in reducing the regulations . There is a saying about the office of management and budget, then nobody outside of the beltway has heard of us, and nobody outside knows what we do. Everybody knows is because of the budget. The m part of omb deals with management. We work with every Single Agency on every one of their major regulations. The department of commerce, if they want to put out a new regulation, they have to work through us first. We are intimately involved with every single peace of regulation, and deregulation. The hardest part about the regulating was that the government forgot how to do it. It had been such a long time since anybody had told him to dereg. Many of the people who were working at these agencies were not born the last time there was a major deregulation effort in the u. S. It has really been the president we are for means in a row where the number one topic was how are you doing on the de reg . It has been a priority for him, we are happy to get it done. [applause] can you give us an idea of a few or one of the most costly regulations you have come across . Anything off the charts . Ofthe two big ones, waters the u. S. , it sits in a roadside ditch. President talks about a lot, which is clean power plants. That was the Obama Administration way to bankrupt the coal industry. Those are the two big things. Stuff from lester doesnt get as much attention. The president gave us the goal of putting one regulation in and getting rid of two of them, i think it was 22 21. 22 gone for everyone we added. You aboutd to ask that. Some discrepancy in is it really 22, thank you for clarifying. I hated because it is working. We saw the Economic Impact of deregulation before we saw the impact of taxes. What the media really hates is the fact that all of this talk about deregulation, they told everybody if the president was elected, there would be dirty, the water would be dirty, you couldnt go outside. The exact opposite has been true. It is working and the media doesnt deal with that. What is the impact in the reduction of regulations having on our economy . I will give you more anecdotal stuff we have heard. The president went to south texas after the hurricanes. He was meeting with folks whose businesses were destroyed, homes were destroyed, etc. He told a story about a middleaged couple he had met who lost their home, their car, and their Small Business. He was expecting them to be completely distraught. They were very optimistic, cheerful. They said we know the work you are doing to get business get government off of our backs will allow us to get our business back online. We will be successful again. Thes that optimism that government is not there to step on the next of people we regulate. We are helping people succeed, not prevent them from it. That has been the big impact. Will regulation continue to be a priority . We will do some new regulations. You have to do a new regulation to fix an old one sometimes. We will also be continuing the deregulatory agenda. We talked to all the cabinet secretaries about it, it is going to continue to be a priority. We like it because we can do most of it without congress. [applause] be careful about how much executive authority you want. All the things the Obama Administration did with without congress, we can do without congress. [applause] lets switch gears and talk about the budget. You served both congress and the executive branch. You have seen both sides of the spectrum. Many conservatives were disappointed over the 2019 budget proposals from the president because of the significant increase in spending. One thing that seems to be the case is for democrats and republicans, they dont have a problem spending money. How is it that we can cut spending . Mick nobody was more disappointed than i was when we offered the budget and we couldnt figure out how to get it to balance in 10 years. To thedown and talked democrats about the amount of money we needed for actual defense. Firstary mattis spent his few months here trying to figure out how much money we needed to fix the defense department. Not only to undo the damage done by the Previous Administration, to deal with a new threat, north korea. We settled on the number, 700 billion. Every time we have met with the democrats in the oval office, they said we are with you. We want to defend the country as well as you would. Then the president said this will be easy. I said it is not. They are not telling you the truth. When we sat down to get into the negotiations, we said we need another 100 for defense, they said that is fine. We will give it to you as long as you give us 100 for nondefense spending. Stuff that democrats like. That was the negotiation. Thats why we spent more money than the president wanted. He said we did the deal to defend the nation. The extortion payment we paid was extraordinarily high. Almost 125 billion in nondefense spending over the next two years to get the democrats to vote for the National Defense budget. It was very frustrating to him. We talked about it a good bit. He was not happy about the extra spending. He considers his First Priority to be to defend the nation. That is how we ended up where we were. What is a way to do better on spending . Elect more republicans. [applause] to piggyback on what you just said, we need a commission . Before it comes to a crisis. Do we need a commission to really pinpoint and highlight the seriousness of the spending we are under in order to get something moving . Mick i have talked to the speaker of the house and the president. Commissions are great. If they want to do that, great. Anything that draws attention would be fantastic. The difficulty is you cant swing a dead cat in this town and get a blueribbon commission. They tend not to work. The real question is up to you. How do you elect people who actually care about spending . That is both parties. There are republicans that say they care about a balanced budget and deficit spending, then do something different. Find out who they are, but find republicans who care about fiscal restraint. How are we going to balance the budget . I dont think we ever will buy only cutting spending. There is the will in congress to do that. We are going to do it the same way we did in the 1990s. We are going to go on revenues faster than expenses. Businessmen and women know what were talking about. Expenses,w what your you are in a lot of trouble. Thats where we have been for the last generation. We need to get to a position where we are growing revenues faster than expenses. Physical restraint, it doesnt mean cuts. Year, went 100 last spend 102 next year, we call that a cut. If we can control expenses and grow the economy. When the economy gets bigger, you make more money. When you make more money, the government makes more money. That is how we get paid. The more money you make, the more money we make. If we can figure out to make you wealthier, the government will benefit. That is the formula we are trying to put in place. I want to ask you about Interest Rates. Your thoughts, in terms of the impact on our federal deficit . Every additional 1 Interest Rate increase. If we thought we were going to pay 2 for the next two years, and instead paid 3 , that cost us 1. 6 trillion over the 10 year window. Hen you talk to a budget us, every additional 1 cost 1. 6 trillion. Everyone present additional economic growth, instead of going for 2 for a decade, if we go to the percent 3 , that saves us 3. 26 trillion. That is how big the American Economy is. The fact that we are able to grow it at 3 is a big deal. If you have seen me on television, you are sick of your me saying it. If you are sitting in here today and you are under the age of 30, you have never had a job for the healthy American Economy. You got a job in the obama economy. That is not a healthy American Economy. [applause] 3 ,things you can do with talk to your parents, your grandparents. Inrew up in a Small Business the 1990s when things were good. If you didnt like your job in the 90s, you could quit and start your own business. If you got laid off or fired, you could go find another job that probably paid better. That is what it is like to live in a healthy American Economy. Confidence,ynamism, it doesnt exist when people are worrying about whether or not we are going to have a healthy economy. If we get to 3 , you see the benefits in the deficit and places like whether or not people have a chance to defend themselves, to pay for the families, to save for their futures. It will be a great opportunity for us to prove to people how Great America can be, economically. Would you want to talk about tax cuts . Are you surprised at the number of companies that have responded to the tax cuts . With the bonuses, the increase in wages . Yes, we are. We had no idea it was going to happen that quickly. We knew the benefits would be there, we believed it. We just thought it would take one year for it to kick in. When businesses started announcing the very next day 1000 bonuses, hourly pay raises, all sorts of stock buybacks for workers, the benefits for ordinary americans were instantaneous. I wish we had known that. We would have tried to pitch that, as we try to bits tax reform. The fact that it happened so quickly proved to us what we knew, but hoped for, we were comfortable going and saying that led, there was we werent comfortable going out and saying out loud, there is a demand for growth in this country. People have been beaten down, they want to grow, now they can do that. In regards to the 1. 5 with the estimated tax given the amount expected because of the bonuses and increase in wages, repatriation, how will this impact . I could do one hour on that. We have already run the numbers. Code, wehange the tax didnt just reduce it, we changed the structure of the tax system for the First Time Since the 1980s. It is a powerful tool that we have given the American Economy. What we saw is what we expected. Revenue started to go down for the first four years, then they start to go up. In the 10th year, the american government, because of a healthy economy, will take in an additional 450 billion in that year alone. That is how this works. We see here and say the differences will go up for a short period of time, over the 10 years, then the government takes own money then the government takes in money. You get richer, the government gets more money, thats the only way we are going to get deficits under control. We think we have taken crucial first steps. Is there anything the audience need to know about . Something you have not addressed here . Mick we are not out to get you anymore. [applause] do, do yourhat you job, start a company, do something, take a chance. Go out and prove to people that capitalism works. We have been the envy of the world, we can be even more so in the future. Go out, take a chance, be successful, and the government will no longer be in your way. [applause] thank you. [applause] meaning, freedom. What about your health care . Are you being told going through the motion, or are you choosing Something Better . Liberty health sure has a purpose. It unites people to share in the burden. Finals is the fourth and day of cpac, taking place outside a washington, d. C. Still to come, devin nunes, who is chair of the house intelligence committee. That is coming up later. We will bring it to you live, here on cspan. Right now, to the National Governors Association Winter meeting in washington, d. C. , where there is a discussion in progress on the agriculture injury agriculture industry. This is live coverage. It is not a money thing, it has been very successful. If it wasnt successful, they would be lined up to do it. Lastly, it is about technology. Technology is so important. People want to give it a bad name. You look at how we farm today, with the technologies that we have, including about technology and compared to the 60s, we are light years ahead when it comes to conserving our soil and water. We could not have done it without bowtech. It lets us use less water, spray less pesticides, it helps us save the land and keep it there. We use cover props. It allows us to do that. Ch has done more for sustainability in our environment than anything else. I want to bring it back to trade. I want to thank you all for what you have done and helping us keep nafta on the mind of the president. We want to make sure that we do no harm. We went from 8 billion worth of trade, 23 years later it is almost 40 billion worth of trade because of nafta. It has been a good deal for agriculture. We want to continue to do that. We have to tear down the barriers around the world where we can touch the other 90 of the population. That is what will make agriculture sustainable when we make it profitable again. I want to thank you for the opportunity. My board is going to be delighted that the governors across this country has put agriculture on the front burner and want to hear it from us. I look forward to the conversation. You. Will start with i think about sustainability, as well. Last fall, i was on a trade mission to taiwan. When you start the conversation with our you guys in favor of trade, it is a difficult question. For me, it is so important because you have to get the next generation interested. In order to do that, you have to have sustainability, and a reasonable expectation of sustainability. Oris hard to buy that form ranch and be in and out in five years. It takes many years to pay those off. Think it really puts our country in a difficult place if we get to a point where we cannot feed ourselves. It puts us in a difficult situation. Is longterm, shortterm, how do you see trade expanding from the United States into different parts of the world . What do we need to be doing as states to make sure it happens . Great question. Let me start with the second part, the states inevitably are wonderful partners regard to the street traffic trade staff. In the United States, most of our buyers are private parties. In the markets where we look around and think we can make the most gains, a lot of them are inextricably tied up with the government. When our growers take trips overseas and bring a governor or commerce secretary, or estate commissioner of ag, that is helpful. Continue doing those things, making those investments at the state level. Secondly, in terms of the Bigger Picture of what we want to do. We want to follow the money. You use the phrase sustainable. You want folks to come back. To be able to do that, you have to show a rate of states sustainability. We know where the margins are today. Particularly with regard to our largest commodities, the margin is and what can we sell overseas. We have more than enough to saturate in our market. Its when we look around the are twot is there things to watch. One is working we sell feed for states that are growing more protein for a growing middle class that is eating more eggs and meat . Secondly, where can we sell it ourselves . Ist we want to focus on southeastern asia, markets we believe our right, given the Economic Situation in those countries where you have a growing middle class. In. You are talking about next question. You are talking about the importance of nafta. Anecdotally, even the discussion of nafta can affect commodity prices. I think that is important, how you discuss it. I think it reflects about how important that is to our ag producers. Comment on that in terms of what you hear from your members. Game thatg to the end the administration is working on a new one. Nafta is important. People are nervous, but we still have a lot of faith that this administration, and secretary perdue, a big voice in the room with the president talking about nafta. When you talk about nafta, it makes the other countries nervous. We have seen mexico buy corn, other places some rice, other toces who cant even get talk to the menstruation about the daily problems, they have talk to our administration about the daily problems read them 200 . A does trade is what we want to work for. There are areas in nafta that need some work. We would support that. All, it is a wonderful trade tree for us. We dont want to do any harm. We want to do better. Every time we have discussions with either those countries or trade, wetries about talk about any particular barrier going up, weather at terrace whether a terrorist, i get phone calls tarrif. I get calls. They hit agriculture first. Perfect example of that is the 80s were a terrible time. I was a young farmer and you would hear of a farmer committed suicide across the country because we were all upside down during that time. What ended that was we took the embargo off of russia, and it started turning the tides. We are very sensitive to trade. We are always the ones to get hit first. Let me turn it over to governor bullock. Any questions . Think all three view birmingham thank all three of you for being here. You expressed three worries. One was the longterm views regarding how we support our farmers. Oer our producers or our producers. I was helping you would explain that. What do we need to be doing as states, or as a nation . I am going to give these gentlemen a second to think of a better answer than mine. I think education continues to be key about putting two things together. One of those is we had a healthy conversation about how important trade is to the bottom line of agriculture. If we look at our trading partners around the world in places where we may not be selling what we believe we could is becauseof that they have subsidy systems where they have artificial barriers to entry of the product. When we evaluate our own farm programs, which are expensive. Around the world, subsidizes their Wine Industry alone more than we subsidize all of agriculture. So we are fighting on a world market with our hand tied behind our back if we are not also supporting our farmers through the programs in title i and crop insurance, and even some trade promotions up we do in the farm bill. Add that Budget Constraints continue to get tighter and more difficult, that the farm bill conversation to change has changed a lot over the years as well and has gotten more difficult. Have seen things i folks start to point out is that we have to work harder to justify the dollars that are being spent. The conservation title, for example, which im certainly most familiar with, a lot of times, we would talk in terms of how many dollars went out the door or how many acres were enrolled in this, that, or the other, i think the public wants to understand what is the actual, tangible benefit of the programs . We talk in terms of Nutrient Loss that has been prevented, soil erosion that has been prevented, wildlife benefits that have been built up, and when it comes to the farm bill, because there are so much misunderstanding, we have to talk about it in terms of the public will grasp and understand, because otherwise it will be harder and harder to defend these kinds of grams. Differentat it from a point of view, and if you talk about bringing young people back to the farm, that is one of my worries. How we keep young people involved. In our states, i see more and more states moving away from funding and education in high school, more and more states moving away from helping push our 4h programs. If we do not give children a industry and great a knowledge of where their food comes from outside of walmart or wherever you might shop, they will never come back. That is the first place we touch them, is in high school, through those programs. Even if they dont end up in agriculture, look at what great leaders they have developed. Those two programs. So important,s everybody around the world wants to know where their food comes from. Everybody. When you go on trade missions for your state, i know a lot of your state Farm Bureau President or someone in agriculture with you. I salute you for doing that. If you are not doing that, you need to take them. As people around the world and in america wants to meet the farmer that is growing their food. And it adds so much to the discussion if they can have that conversation with the person that has the knowledge of how they are growing their food. I will put it up to the upper governors up to the other governors. You know, when i came into office, when oil dropped to 26 a barrel, which was 96 of our revenue, one of the things that rose to the surface was agriculture. When we became a state, we used to raise 50 of what we consumed. Now we raise 5 as a result of what has changed. Agriculture is writing to the surface in a very significant way. One of the things we are concerned about is Food Security in alaska. Storm, wehip or one have empty shelves. We are focusing on alaskan groan, trying to emphasize that, and we have a farmtwo hyphens farmtoschool , and competition we started with safeway and fred myers and other retailers. We just had a celebration at the governors house, a big dinner for the retailers that sold the most alaskangrown. It is a 2 billion industry and a mask of in alaska, so we do not need to look for the margaret market. That make me feel better my question to you is this. What percentage of the food concerned in the United States to we grow one of percent of our food or import food . That is a great question, and i will answer it by trying to exactmouthing the statistics, but break it up by subsectors, if you will. In some places, these numbers are very beneficial and in some places, they ought to make us nervous. If you look at the seafood sector, we are bringing in a substantial amount of what we consume here in the United States. If you look at the fruits and vegetable sector, we are bringing in somewhere around half and half. That has been a boon to many u. S. Producers, because they can offer a restaurant or Food Service Company a product year round, which increases the actual demand for that product, therefore increasing the domestic demand for that product. Places like have in our traditional protein, chicken, poultry, beef and pork, we are doing that more efficiently here than most folks around the world. By the time you had the infrastructure and transportation costs, very little of that is coming in from elsewhere. That is my level set on what we re, doing their doing the and each sector requires different answers on how you strengthen your dependence on american grown and lessen your dependence on foreign grown. Thank you. [inaudible] comment that ito agree, [inaudible] and there is an opportunity to [inaudible] i want to express my thanks as well for the leadership in this, and [inaudible] open up the china market, maybe now i will be heard. [laughter] market for ourna u. S. Rights, but they still have to do their sedentary agreements sanitary agreements and inspections. Can you comment on that, knowing how a small part of the china market, what it would mean to u. S. Rice production and all of agriculture . Their they have opened up beef, which is a great victory for us, but can you comment on where we are in terms of finishing veal and when we can expect rice to go to china . Tolet me start the answer that question, by saying we have a room full of governors and media and a guy from the white house, and i am probably the only one that does not want to make news with my answer here. Int you are talking about the context for everybody in the room was part of a package of things that the United States had negotiated for with china at the beginning of this administration. There was a dialogue going back and forth with china, which is not unique. A number of the administrations began with an earnest conversation with china about how do we open certain doors to selling more of our products within your country . Those conversations have consistently gone splendidly at the beginning and then over time, you realize the list of eight or 10 things that you have, you are not able to check all those boxes. So i would say sincerely and very transparently, the guarantees we have from the chinese are that they are going to do their inspections, say that we passed their sanitary and phytosanitary tests. We do not have any nervousness about that. But what you are seeing in regard to the delay in that is precisely, i believe, the thing that frustrates the president about trade. We want to say, set a set of rules, set a level Playing Field and lets compete and be transparent about the reasons why we are or are not allowing a product to come in or out of our countries. To of the nontariff barriers trade is this idea of go, we need to come inspect how you are raising things, check your process, or manufacturing process for us that is very different than the rest of the industrialized world that applies to this particular product or line of trade. I am optimistic we will work those things out, we certainly want to do that, i am not on the precipice of any major announcement with in regards to that. Sh hopes,want to da in townguys are only until tuesday, and i doubt we will announce it before then. But if we do, we will call you and make sure you are there. Governor cooper . Now it is working right. We were trying to keep his microphone off, not yours, governor hutchinson. [laughter] spoken like a true north carolinian. We are glad to have you there. We have seen the significant benefits to farmers with rule of law bands. We have seen Small Farmers turn things around when they get access to highspeed internet. Have there been discussions with transportation regarding the upcoming infrastructure bill and whether there is some potential for proposals to be made regarding rod band . Ie a lot of competition know we have a lot of competition for the infrastructure money, and there is a long way for it to go. But where do you see broadband either in that infrastructure bill or in other areas for the state . I would point to the three things, and the first of those is that exactly is your question poses. The instructor package the president has proposed, for the dollar amount that is in that package, the 200 billion, 250 billion that we hope to leverage to over 1 trillion, 25 of the funds are dedicated solely to Rural America. Will be handed out, literally handed, relatively few Strings Attached to the governors of each state. That is the way the president proposed it. We will see what happens if the bill gets through congress and comes out on the other side. But part of the reason that we wanted to do it that way was we truly believe in this idea of laboratory is a democracy, we believe that you at the state level are held very accountable and that you have a better idea of what sort of rural investments need to be made in your state. To that end, some states have made tremendous progress through the years on expanding rural broadband. If we were to hand you those dollars, maybe that is not where you would choose to spend them in your state. First and foremost, in the infrastructure package that the president has proposed, 25 is set aside for rural and at least and literally handed out to the governors in those states. Secondly, you saw the executive actions taken out of the Farm Bureau Meeting that he referred to. We want to talk about how he leveraged federal assets, particularly in western states, where the federal government is a large percentage landowner. We have towers, infrastructure, property that can be leveraged by the governor and government or the private sector to expand broadband out there . And how do we see what we are spending throughout the federal government and spending it at the state level . How do we spend it better . A, wesy way to do this is have money in some budgets for broadband for health care. Congress has recognized in the Previous Administration has recognized that hospitals and medical care really rely on this kind of technology in order to communicate over broadband. There are Grant Programs for extending Health Programs into Rural America on broadband. Similarly, there are proposals that relate to education and other sectors. We want to see how that money is being spent and make sure it is not siloed. How can we put those funds together and do two things at one time or get more bang for the buck out of that money . It sounds cliche, but that effort is genuinely going on. ,f course, the fcc is trying and we are trying on the permanent sign as well, to make that process as efficient and safe, economically and ecologically successful still, but to minimize the pain points of installing rod band, particularly in Rural America. A good example of one of the things we are taking a look at is part of a bond that you have to post for selective federal law in regard to putting in fiber, it is a bond that was designed to cover the risk of a pipeline leaking. If a fiberoptic cable leaks, it does not go very far. It pipeline presents a pipeline presents a different situation, so maybe we still need a bond or something to ensure buyer mental inshore environmental compliance, ensure environmental compliance, but does it need to be different than what we have out there . I cannot overemphasize that you all, from our perspective, are the people that should have the pen and the Steering Wheel on how we will deploy these dollars in Rural America. Her lacrossets of america, they need different solutions. We think you are the best ones to be able to figure that out. [indiscernible] we are out of time. I want to thank the panel and the opportunity of those of us sitting here, and those of us governors who could not be here right now. We want to keep at it, be at the forefront of our discussions here at nga. We recognize what it means to the economy, trade, and youll have all been great at providing excellent information to us. We hope we will continue to have this discussion at nga, and we hope you will come back and provide us even more education. Thank you very much and we applaud you for your service. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] state governors across the country have just wrapped up for thecond session National Governors Association Annual winter meeting in washington dc. They talked about the future of agriculture. This morning, they heard from australian Prime Minister malcolm turnbull. Later on, they will talk about ways to control the opioid crisis. We will bring you that discussion live here on cspan, at 4 15 p. M. Eastern. And you can watch the governors meeting on our website, www. Cspan. Org. Yesterday, some of the governors spoke with mike allen