[applause] [applause] hey, come on here. [applause] as speaker of the house of toegates, its my pleasure present you the governor of the commonwealth of virginia. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe thank you. [laughter] gov. Mcauliffe thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow virginians, good evening. Speaker cox, senator newman, justices of the supreme court, ladies and gentlemen of the virginia General Assembly, i do once again appreciate the opportunity to address you one final time. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe i would be careful. Last year, every republican i gave a shout out, they are not back this year in the chamber. [applause] [laughter] gov. Mcauliffe you guys have done just fine. Before i begin seriously, i would let the think speaker bill howell for his many years of service to this commonwealth and to tell him and his family that we are praying for his speedy recovery. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe i would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, mr. Speaker, for your election to this historic office. Congratulations. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe i am so proud to be joined this evening by so may ny people who have worked tirelessly to help this administration in this commonwealth succeed over the last four years. We have with us, my incredible wife and my better half, the first lady of the commonwealth of virginia Dorothy Mcauliffe is with us tonight. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe her leadership on childhood nutrition has resulted in more than 12 million more meals being served to our students this year than in my first year in office. Her work on behalf of military students and their families has ensured that virginia law remain the number one place in the world for our service members. And their loved ones to call home. Thank you, dorothy, for your great work. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe i would like to take this opportunity and recognize our five children four who are here with us tonight. Thank you for enduring this and being a great partner to their dad. Thank you. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe our Lieutenant Governor and the governor elect, dr. Ralph northam and pam northam are in the house with us as well. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe ralph, i have been so fortunate to have you as my Lieutenant Governor and my friend. I know you will make a great 73rd governor in virginia with pam at your side. Congratulations and good luck. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe to our attorney general, i want to thank you for your unwavering dedication to upholding the law protecting the rights of all virginians. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe i have loved every minute but i have really loved working with ralph and mark and i know they will continue that great work alongside our next Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax over the next four years, congratulations justin. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe to my entire cabinet to as been nothing short of spectacular, i take pride and i leave the greatest cabinet ever assembled in their team i think them for their tremendous work. I especially want to thank my chief of staff and deputy chief of staff for the great work they have done. On behalf of our citizens, thank you, all of you for what you have done for this commonwealth. [applause] gov. Mcauliffe there is one secretary who i think has tremendously helped everybody in this chamber. He has helped us all sleep at her at night. Finance secretary rick brown will soon retire after 47 years of dedicated service to this great commonwealth. Congratulations, buddy. Ership. The men and women of my cabinet have done tremendous work over the last four years, but that would not be possible without the most counted and dedicated state Employee Workforce across the globe. I am so proud we have been able to get them two welldeserved pay raises. Please join me in recognizing the state employees that keep. His state running [applause] we are also so fortunate to have the greatest first responders, national guard, active duty military right here in the commonwealth of virginia. [applause] we should never forget these men and women who put their lives on the every day so we could gather here safely tonight. Its hard to believe it has been four years since i first stood at this desk and spoke about what i wanted to achieve as governor. New economybuild a for everyone. Spendingnce on federal downus exposed to shut sequestration and significance significant defense cuts. Many of the underpinnings of our economy were in need of dire reform and investment. Shaken the faith of virginians in the integrity of their Public Officials and years damagedsan warfare had our reputation across the world. This was designed to open up a new chapter of growth and opportunity. Four years later, we can look back on the record of pride that we have in our economy. We have made decisions to prioritize benefit to virginians in our economy. If you recall when i took office, virginia had just wasted 300 million on route 460, a road that would never be built. Just this morning, i announced a deal to extend the i95 hotlines 10 miles south without asking the taxpayers to put up a single dollar for construction. Fact, this project will require the builder to cut virginia a check. [applause] that is how you negotiate deals. ,e took the port of virginia which foolishly had been put up all wewe took it took it off the market. Today, it is profitable for the Third Straight year and now we are tracting some of the biggest container ships in the entire port. Are coming to our we took executive action we took executive action to make virginia a leader in reducing carbon and combating climate change, and we built a new Clean Energy Economy from the ground up. In addition to being one of the first states in the nation to announce an offshore utility wind project, i am particularly proud of the progress we have made on solar energy. When we took office, virginia was home to 17 megawatts of power installed. Lowest in the United States of america. Today, four years later, we have installed more than 2,600 installed or under development. [applause] even in times of fiscal difficulty, i am proud we protected k12 education from budget cuts, and worked together to make the largest investment in education in the history of virginia. We reformed the standards of learning and eliminated five tests, transformed our workforce training programs, and redesigned our High School Curriculum to better align it with the needs of a 21st century economy. When draconian regulations threatened to shutter nearly all of virginias Womens Health clinics, we stood as a brick wall to protect womens access to care. [applause] we reformed our ethics laws to restore the people of virginias trust that we are here working for them, not for ourselves. We passed the first meaningful gun safety laws in more than two decades. We expanded access to Critical Health services for the people who need them most. We were the first state in the nation to bring a functional end to veteran homelessness and we connected more than 31,000 veterans with good jobs right with a new job right here in virginia. [applause] we secured and modernized our elections system. We transformed our criminal Justice System, which has posted the lowest recidivism rate in the United States of america for the second year in a row. [applause] like any relationship, we have had our rough patches. I, for one, to be honest with you did not come into this job expecting the Republican Leadership of the General Assembly to sue me for contempt over restoration of rights. But i think the fact that i was the first governor to receive such an honor only underscores what a truly historic four years this has been for virginia. Even the justices are chuckling a little bit up here. But despite a few bumps in the road, our Work Together has been defined far more by serious policy accomplishments than by partisan warfare, and the people of virginia are better for it. I thank all of you. Every step we took tied back to our mission of building a new virginia economy. And job creators are taking notice. As a testament to that, tonight i am proud to announce that Service Center metals will invest 45. 2 million to expand its manufacturing operation in Prince George county. To the surprise of absolutely no one, virginia successfully competed against indiana for the project, which will create 58 new jobs for virginia workers. Let me tell you why this announcement is so important to me personally. Because of the opportunity it will create for virginia families, but it also has a larger significance tonight. With this project, and the over 1,100 others we have announced, virginia has now attracted more than 20 billion in new Capital Investment since i took office. That record exceeds any previous governor by more than 6. 5 billion dollars. Service center metals cofounder chip dollins and the chairman of the Prince George county board of supervisors, Alan Carmichael are with us this evening. I want to say thank you for your younce you have have have had. Stand up and give them a great round of applause. [applause] the investments, policy decisions and Economic Development successes of the past four years have contributed to a new chapter of Economic Growth in our commonwealth. After 35 domestic and International Trade missions across five continents, we have seen virginias agriculture exports skyrocket 30 from 70 billion in 2014 to 91 billion last year. Tourism revenues have grown by 2. 2 billion since we took office. Personal income is up 12. 3 . Our initial unemployment claims have just reached a 43year low. There are more than 200,000 more jobs today than in 2014. I mean, jobs are bipartisan. There are no democrat republican jobs. A job is a job. In 2017 alone, virginia created 33,700 net new jobs, compared with the 1,500 that were created the year before i took office. Weve driven unemployment down from 5. 4 percent when i took office. And i am proud to say in every single city and county in virginia, they have seen their unemployment drop in the last four years. [applause] folks, these are not just numbers. Reflection of the remarkable turnaround weve seen in the virginia economy over the past four years. As the most traveled govern the nation, i can tell you firsthand they translate to real jobs and , real opportunity. They translate to even more Economic Activity as we have told this amazing story to job creators across the globe. Virginia is a different place than it was four years ago, and for that we should all be proud. But there is still more work to do. I may not be here to continue the battle but the budget , proposal i am leaving behind reflects the enormous progress we have made and the need to keep moving forward. If you remember, in my first year in office, we were forced to Work Together to deal with an inherited 2. 4 billion shortfall. Since then, our bipartisan cooperation and virginias strong Economic Growth have improved our financial picture significantly. In fact, i know you will be happy to hear that, the First Six Months of the current fiscal year, i announced today that revenue collections are up 5. 9 percent over last year, well ahead of our estimate of 3. 4 percent, which we have already revised upward. And you know what that means . That means we are running nearly half a billion dollars ahead of our revised forecast heading into the final six months of the fiscal year. Now we are talking money. [applause] virginias Strong Revenue picture is a clear sign of a growing economy and the budget i , have presented to you builds on that momentum. It invests in the essentials of a modern economy like Public Education and workforce training. It strengthens our commonwealths response to our ongoing Mental Health and opioid crisis. It advances the work we have done to diversify our economy so that we no longer rely on one industry for our future Economic Growth. That is so important today because virginia is no longer just a defenseindustry state. Were a cyber state, an advanced manufacturing state, a Data Analytics state. Were a bioscience state, a Renewable Energy state and an Unmanned Systems state. In addition to the budget, this year presents a unique opportunity to move virginia forward on a number of issues that are important to the health, safety and prosperity of , the families we serve. Yesterday, governorelect northam and i stood together and outlined several pieces of legislation that we hope the new General Assembly will pass this year. They include reducing obstacles to voting by doing away with barriers to absentee voting. Building on the executive actions my administration is pursuing to cut carbon and create Clean Energy Jobs by becoming the First Southern state to formally join the regional Greenhouse Gas initiative. We need to close a loophole in our ethics laws by prohibiting the personal use of campaign funds. Finally raising the threshold for felony larceny from 200 to 1000 so that one mistake does not ruin a persons entire life. [applause] giving virginians the tools to manage student debt and hold predatory lenders accountable by passing a borrowers bill of rights and creating a state ombudsman for student debt. And by keeping families safe from gun violence by requiring background checks for every gun purchased in virginia. None of these items are inherently political. They are proposed solutions to real policy problems. It could well be the case that there are better ideas to solve these problems and make life better for virginians. Those are the questions we were all elected to consider. We were not, however, elected to ignore problems like these or allow Real Solutions to become bogged down in the mud of partisan politics and special interests. As i look across this room, i see many new faces. The people of virginia, in their wisdom, have made significant changes to the composition of this General Assembly with a simple message in mind Work Together to get things done. [applause] that is the opportunity they have given you to do things differently than they have been done in the past, and to finally break the gridlock on issues where we havent made as much progress as we should. The chief issue that demands your attention is making a clear statement that, in a new virginia economy, health care is not a privilege for the few. It is a right for all. You can make progress on that [applause] you can make progress on that goal by bringing our tax dollars home to provide health care for nearly 400,000 virginians who need it. The plan i have submitted would create 30,000 jobs and free up 422 million in our budget to invest in priorities like a state employee pay increase and a 427 million contribution to our reserve fund, all without putting a single virginia tax dollar on the table. As some of you may recall, expanding medicaid to cover working virginians who lack access to health care is an issue i have felt very passionate about the last four years. I will tell you this. I am passionate because i know, as many of you do, the benefit it would bring to our economy and to our budget. I am passionate because i have met hospital administrators in Rural Communities who say they need it to survive. Above all, i am passionate because i have looked mothers and fathers, sons and daughters in the eye and heard how they cannot work, they cannot care for their families, they cannot live the lives that they deserve because they cannot get the health care they need. You can end the waiting, the hurt, the worry for those virginians and put them on a path to greater opportunity and productivity. You can shore up rural hospitals that are struggling to stay open because they still care for these virginians, but they are not being reimbursed for their expenses. Listen to the clear message that the people of virginia sent on election day. Put the politics aside. Its time to expand medicaid in the commonwealth of virginia. [applause] as you prepare to write the next chapter of our commonwealths history, i hope you will remember several principles that have guided our work over the past four years. While other states have grappled with discriminatory and socially divisive legislation and the damage it does to their economies, virginia has capitalized on their misfortune. As you know, i absolutely hated having to veto the 120 bills sent to my office. But let me be clear. Those bills took virginia in the wrong direction. They attacked womens rights, equality for lgbt people, and access to the voting booth. They hurt our environment and they , made virginia less safe. I honestly wish theyd never made it to my desk. Because the passage hurt us. Heard a reputation. I vetoed those bills because, in a new virginia economy, we are about the business of bringing people together and lifting everyone up, not tearing them apart or dragging them down. [applause] in the coming years, i hope you will build on that foundation by using your voices and your votes to make virginia more equal, more just, and more prosperous for all people, no matter whom they are, where they live or whom they love. Another guiding principle that has served this administration well is the inc