The general assembly, distinguished guests and members of the media, welcome. To the members of our national guard, our servicemen and women and our veterans, thank you on behalf of of the most grateful state. [applause] god bless you. To the citizens, the taxpayers of illinois, it is an honor to serve you. My report on the state of the state, this bicentennial year, begins with a reflection on what has been born, built and grown in illinois. Our history is rich. We were the first state to ratify the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. President lincoln, grant, reagan and obama called illinois home. We taught the world to rebuild the city when we scraped the sky after the chicago fire. We invented the 20 and started the First Nuclear chain reactor. With 36 fortune 500 companies, one point to million Small Businesses and 72000 of the nations greatest farms we are the worlds 17th largest economy. We are a top signed the Medical Center and 82 foreign consulates help connect us to the global economy. Our institutions of Higher Learning are worldrenowned, world connected. Most important, our people lead the world in hard work and innovation. You name the field and we will name the pioneers. There is Poet Gwendolyn Brooks of our most personal struggles and Nobel Laureate robert millikens work with electrons in orbit and james levels moon orbiting apollo 13. There is benny goodmans big band and walt disneys big eared mouse. Jane adams heroic social work, but joe hairs congressional medal of honor and there is Marshall Field on that great street and john deeres steel plow. Media moguls Robert Mccormick and William S Daly and athletes Michael Jordan and jackie during her cursory, authors Ernest Hemingway and edna ferber and today we produce 10 of our nations computer science. We graduate more engineers than mit, stanford and caltech combined. Illinois grads have started youtube, oracle, ctw, paypal, tesla motors and so many more. This is where illinois comes from and these are the people on whose shoulders we stand to envision our future. This is the lofty Vantage Point from which we now look ahead. Throughout our history illinois has been a magnet and if you want to till the soil, leah breck, build a building and make a deal supercomputer, you name it you can find work in illinois, afford a home and rely on the Public Schools to educate your children. Today we have an opportunity to turn yesterday into tomorrow and make illinois the powerhouse job creator we should be. We can do it and we united last fall to bid for amazon second headquarters, governor, mayor, general assembly, city council, businesses and nonprofit, republicans and democrats, collaborated to compete for 15 years of growth with 168,000 potential jobs and hundred 29 billion in cumulative new gdp. [applause] the fact is there is another even bigger amazon opportunity for us to pursue. This request proposal comes from an enterprise called the state of illinois. We have the assets and we certainly have the incentives. 12. 8 billion citizens want us to ignite our economy but this is not a prize one wins alone. It takes a collaborative effort and forget about the politics and roll up our sleeves kind of approach. It requires a laserlike focus on Economic Development and job creation and a bipartisan dedication to restore public trust. [applause] this legislative session is a chance for us to put into place the policies, the changes, the fiscal discipline to recruit many more amazons. United we can create thousands and thousands of jobs and attract billions of dollars in investment and set millions of illinois free to buy more, build more and make more. This report on the state of our state will focus on the places where we agree and where we can start to build to the future. The state of our state today is one of readiness. Readiness born of on precedented frustration with our political culture but with a firm belief that we have tremendous but yet unrealized economic potential. The place to start is to start with a joint effort to restore public trust and to tell truth to power and to stand up against the establishment without fear of recrimination and these notions of democracy and social progress too often seem lost in illinois government. Once we joined the to address the problems we now divide to conquer the other side or worse we legislate for expediency rather than effect. When the need to movement struck springfield last fall the outcry for active vocal form turned into legislation and a hollywood minute. Unfortunately many believe that transparency and accountability was sacrificed for optics and speed so today i will sign an executive order to strengthen the policies that ensure all of Government Employees under my offices jurisdiction have reliable and responsive outlet for reporting asked of Sexual Misconduct and the order makes the ethics act supreme over all other laws and agreements in the state. Even those in collective bargaining agreement. [applause] the order creates a chief Compliance Office in the executive branch and stipulates reviews of allegations in ten days or less and requires best investigation practices by the end of this year and every two years after that. We these are powerful protections that the legislator should emulate and further we will introduce legislation this session to make the ethics act the prevailing law of the state in all matters involving this contract. Every man and woman here today and every man and woman in our state, we are all unified in the expectation that we will act on our complete intolerance of and utter revulsion for sexual harassment. [applause] it is protection almost have and we must give. We will also ask you to come together for another important cause. Two and half years ago our departments in Public Health and Veterans Affairs responded to a tragic outbreak of legionnaires disease in our quincy veterans home. It claimed the lives of 13 veterans. Our Leadership Team and our medical in caregiver staff took all the right steps to deal with the crisis and we discovered the true cause of the outbreak through our proactive test and we partnered with the cdc, took each of their recommendations and installed a 6 milliondollar new Water Treatment system and instituted best practices for water flushing and purification. According to the cdc the effort has resulted in a substantial reduction in cases of legionnaires disease and detecting it in the water system. Even though Research Shows that legionella is everywhere, including this very capital, our goal is to prevent legionella infection at the quincy home. The cdc says it is impossible to eliminate the bacteria but we will fight against it as hard as our veterans but for us. The latest cdc recommendations are being appointed but we are going beyond the recommendations of experts and we are investigating the possibility of entire system replacements and perhaps even entirely new facility. Some of my friends from the quincy home are here with us today, residents ivan jackson and carol and family members marty and vicki, please stand. Thank you for your service. Please stand. [applause] god bless you. I know all of us share passion to do everything we can to keep our veterans safe and healthy. I know i can count on all of you to support the improvements that are needed. The men and women who reside there put it all on the line for us we must bow to do the same for them. No one in illinois is happy with our property tax assessment system. Ordinary people, the ones without clouds or connections or money to pay highpowered lawyers, none of them they are all victims of a rigged system against them. For too long big businesses in the welltodo have gone huge tax breaks while little guys in the little businesses take it in the pocketbooks. Home values in some part of our state are half they were ten years ago yet property taxes are twice as high. Small businesses often have to cut staff to pay their taxes and elderly couples on fixed income are too often pushed out of their homes because they cannot afford their property taxes. Christine wilson is here today. She is one of thousands of homeowners in illinois that have property taxes that are unfair, unaffordable and crushing their quality of life. Christine, thank you for your passionate advocacy to deal with Property Tax Relief. [applause] it is a vicious form of oppression in the system traps people in their homes be prizes their equity, drives mortgages underwater and in some cases pushes people out of our state. It is time to put a stop to the corruption. Two weeks ago we issued an executive order that prevents legislators from practicing for the state property tax appeal board and today senator over weiss and representative whirley will introduce legislation that asks you to apply the same reform to every legislator who might practice for an assessment of billboard anywhere in the state. Once again we will ask you to pass legislation that brings true Property Tax Relief given people the ability to lower their property taxes through a simple voter referendum. These are reforms we must enact if we want common sense to win out over corruption there are one more step we need to take to regain public confidence. 80 of illinois voters want term limits. The other 20 it seems are seated in this chamber and in elected illinois courts it is past time to make this Good Governance move and put term limits on the ballot and let people decide. [applause] as quick and decisive as need to be on ethics we need to be just as aggressive on jobs in the economy. There is no question we need the economic spark and news of the population decline and slow Business Growth have effects that go far beyond troublesome headlines. It cost us jobs and rob us of tax revenue and i dont know anyone in this chamber or in interstate who isnt frustrated when we spend beyond our means or borrow to cover deficits or let tension issues go unresolved. Yet, there is example after example of what can be done on a bipartisan basis to reverse the trend. Rhode island formed their pension. California enacted term limits and massachusetts changed their Group Health Plan and lowered workers comp insurance rate and we have the power to take similar steps. The question is whether we have the will to take them. There is no question about this we have planted the seeds of growth in our economy. We put 120,000 people to work here in illinois and we have brought and kept business here, amazon, general mills, newport steel, Grant Industries and many more. We signed a future Energy Jobs Act to preserve the States Energy option and create thousands of jobs in our energy industry. Because we are recognized leaders in the Energy Sector job holders in cities all across the state reap the benefits. We helped launch the Illinois Innovation Network and the Discovery Partners institute, an effort to link the power of Great Research to entrepreneurship in a business formation. What stanford and berkeley and harvard and mit are to the coast partnerships of the u of i, usc and northwestern can even surpass in illinois. [applause] we have given our state tools to compete and we have cut red tape and we have slashed these for Small Businesses by 70 . We assigned tax credits into law to help stanch the outflow of businesses to our border states. We established intersect in illinois to focus on Business Development and to travel to asia and israel to bring more jobs to illinois and we declared a harvest emergency a small to help farmers get crops to market. [applause] the key to job creation is education and training and we have started to transform education in our state. During our time in the executive Branch Funding for k12 schools has increased one point to billion dollars and that includes record levels of funding for Early Childhood education. We enacted historic reforms together to end one of the most inequitable funding formulas in the country. Most districts it will be a welcome and long overdue infusion of new money for their programs. Now, need dictate resources, not zip codes. We achieved historic parities in people funding for child schools and we have created invest in kids the states first ever tuition tax credit scholarship program. And now with more than 45 million already contributed to the program that students in low income families have a way to attend schools that meet their needs. [applause] scholarship granting organizations have experienced Unprecedented Demand for the new program. One in chicago received more than 11000 student applications on the very first day. We created a task force to find ways to overcome the shortage of agriculture teachers, a critical need with a 7 million acres of prime buy land in our state. These steps are designed to achieve one goal, prepare our children to be prosperous in our workforce. When we create jobs illinois young people will be ready to fill it. In a truly bipartisan effort we have made historic nationally acclaimed criminal justice reforms together. Fairness responsiveness and jobs are Center Points of our effort. Peoples lives should not be dictated by a mistake or by the failure of bureaucracy to deliberate and process. So, the backlog of 2200 requests left on my desk by my predecessors is now gone. Today we deal with requests in real time and the states present revelation has been safely reduced by nearly 50 and we do everything we can to help nonviolent offenders and Young Offenders learn in prison so they dont go back to prison. Offenders cannot train and test for professional licenses while they are serving in prison. Id like you all to say hello to a guest here today, landis jackson, hes our first licensee. Could you stand and say hello, landis . [applause] next time you are in [inaudible], i hope you go visit his barbershop as i did he will show you the license he earned while he was in prison and he will tell you with pride about the business he is building. There is now a division in the department of corrections to help women. Many of whom are moms and 30 of whom and up back in prison within three years. We want to cut the recidivism rate so these mothers can be there to raise and love their children. Yes, thank you. On the enforcement side to keep families safe we successfully joined local and federal authorities to combat Gang Violence as well as gun, drug and human trafficking. Illinois state police will have graduated three new trooper classes by the end of the summer and we are fighting the Opioid Epidemic are 247point has steered hundreds of victims to the resources they need to begin recovery. Prescribers must register in our discussion monitor program so we can check the abuses that critical points in the distribution cycle. We made it possible for First Responders to use medication to block overdoses and we are determined to reduce projected deficit by one third in the years that. [applause] we work everyday top agencies provide Better Service at lower cost to the taxpayers of illinois. We now have 19 Innovative New labor agreements in place to pay our hard work in state Government Employees based upon a 40 hour workweek other than 37 and a half hours and pay on merit and productivity, not just seniority and we have launched Technology Initiatives to streamline our interface taxpayers and the objective is to get online so we can facilitate Customer Service and Business Growth and we want government to work for people, not against them. Our Healthcare FraudElimination Task force in collaboration with Inspector General maggie has helped to root out medicaid fraud to the tune of 450 million in taxpayer savings so far. We are also careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. What we spend isnt ours. It belongs to our taxpayers and we think they deserve better values for their money. We have vetoed unbalanced budgets that would push us deeper into debt and we have vetoed tax increases that illinois could not afford. We vetoed the 32 income tax increase and acted last summer. In 2019 our pension cost will rise another 600 million. Ask anyone in this room if they think this trajectory of Pension Expense can be sustained. Most will say no but lik most lk the courage to break the status quo can change our path to the future. On this point i think we can agree and it is time we do the people of illinois want to halt the advance of taxes, stop spending money we dont have, get our pensions under control and give power back to the people of illinois. [applause] the surest road to Economic Vitality and growth is the collaborative effort to regain the financial integrity and to that end i will submit i will submit a balanced Budget Proposal next month. [applause] i hope this year you will pass it rather than ignore it. [applause] it will offer a path to reduced spending and it will show the way to surpluses Going Forward so we can cut taxes and start to push back against the assault on middleclass big accounts. [applause] we assume significant challenges ahead but the opportunities we have are so extraordinary, so much like multiple amazons, we must rally around the cause of job growth for all illinoisans in the simple truth is of our shared experience we cannot tax and borrow our way into prosperity. We can and must grow our way into a more prosperous future and we all know that people of illinois are taxed out so just as we reversed the flow of the Chicago River it is time to change the flow of money in illinois. Lets curb our spending and Work Together to give people the capital they need to build and grow. If that happens, we will produce more good paying jobs, higher personal income and Income Growth and attract talented taxpayers to our economy. Abraham lincoln once said the best way to predict the future is to create it. It is within our power to produce an illinois that lives up to our resources. The seeds of the planet, the work is begun, now is the time to finish the job. Thank you all, god bless our veterans, god bless the people of illinois and god bless the United States of america. Thank you. [applause] sunday night on after words, author tara talks about growing up with survivalist parents in the idaho mountains in her book, educated a memoir. Shes interviewed by author and journalist susanna. A lot of people seem to have really taken to heart this idea that to learn something you have to have a degree you have to have a full institution in place to teach it to you. I am grateful to my parents but i was not raised to think that so i decided i wanted to go to college when i was 16 it felt today like something i could do not because i had any formal education but because i need to learn algebra and i will buy a book and learned and i didnt do an amazing job but i barely got into university but i kept going with that and i think yeah, my parents took it too far. I arrived at the university underprepared and i once raised my hand in class and asked about cost was real because i never heard of it. People that i was being antisemitic but they thought i was denying it. Ive never heard of it before. I wouldnt say this is the ideal education and i would not say that. Want after words sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on the tv on cspan2. Youre watching tv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. Tonight on booktv highlights from our Interview Program after words. Next, Christopher Scalia on his Father Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Next, women marched on washington leader. Next on the tvs after words, Christopher Scalia, son of the late spring Court JusticeAntonin Scalia shares his fathers speeches on law, faith and virtue. Hes interviewed by los angeles time Supreme Court correspondent david savage. After words is a weekly Interview Program with relevant guest host interviewing a top nonfiction authors about their latest work. Host Christopher Scalia, your father Antonin Scalia was one of the most powerful writers of the Supreme Court opinion and he wrote a lot of defense with real zingers, great for people like me quoting him but this is not a book about Court Opinions but a book about speeches so why speeches . You well, yeah, and he said his Court Opinions are memorable and im often told by law students and reporters that they went to his opinions first for that reason because they were so crisply written and evocative and powerful