Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our next session. The states versus the state. How governors are reclaiming americas promise. Please welcome governor matt bevin of kentucky, senator brownback of kansas, governor deucy of arizona, and Governor Scott walker of wisconsin. Or moderator, richard grabber. [ applause ] thanks, guys. Good morning, everyone. My name is nick, im president of the brantley foundation. Its great to be here. Our topic today is federalism. And certainly over our lifetimes, weve witnessed a frightening and really disturbing expansion of federal government. Far beyond what our founders ever anticipated, and they truly did work hard to work against and to prevent. And that expansion of federal government has only gotten worse over the last eight years under president obama. Today we have the great privilege to welcome four outstanding gochb nors to discuss these very significant issues of federal growth and regulatory overreach. And they really do bring a great firsthand perspective why states should be the laboratory of the governmental system in the United States. Just a couple of works on each of our governors. Starting to my far right, governor doosy, the 23rd governor of arizona. [ applause ] he was elected in 2014. He inherited a 1 billion deficit that he fixed. Thank you, governor. [ applause ] hes consistently been committed to economic growth, job restoration, and of course, protecting the citizens of arizona. Comes to the job with a great business background. He worked for proctor and gamble. Hes also a partner and ceo of an ice cream chain called cold stone creamery. Governor dusy. Governor Sam Brownback of kansas. [ applause ] governor of kansas, elected in 2010. Hes now in his second term. Hes an attorney general by training. Also, of course, a former congressman and senator. He signed the largest income tax cut in kansas history in 2012. [ applause ] a champion for limited government, better education system, and creating an environment that promotes job creation. Our next governor, my governor, Governor Scott walker, the 45th governor. [ applause ] in his second term, he was a member of the wisconsin legislature. Former county executive from milwaukee county. He won this heavily democratic county in the wake of what was a huge scandal at that time. And then was easily reelected to that job. His accomplishments in wisconsin have been very well documented. Of course, he survived a recall. Hes brought about sweeping changes and collective bar gaining rights for Public Employees in wisconsin. And hes overseen an economy in wisconsin that really has revived itself. Governor walker. [ applause ] and then finally, from the commonwealth of kentucky, governor matt bevin, the 67th governor. [ applause ] elected in 2015, hes the third republican governor of kentucky since world war 12. Rising to the rank of captain in the United States army, in finance and investment world and his family business. Been a strong advocate for low taxes, small government, sustainable energy, and a strong locally controlled education system. So a great panel of governors. [ applause ] lets jump right into the questions. The first one is a twopart question. And well go around the horn and ask each governor to give an example from your state, where youre already handling a problem that is really best handled at the state level and not the federal level. And follow up with that with another example of where you think you could really get a whole lot more done in your state if only the federal government would get out of the way. So lets start down on this end. Governor deucy . Its great to be here. This is my first time at cpac. As a new governor, and conservative, coming out of the private sector, i think one of the things that im most proud of is the fact that we were able to balance the budget in arizona. I think government should live within its means. I always say as someone who ran cold stone creamery, you get a lot of undeserved popularity selling ice cream. Most of that goes away when you do balance that budget. But it puts you in a position where you can really start to make reforms. So in addition to balancing the budget, lowering taxes these first two years, we passed the american civics act. Its the task that every High School Graduate is going to have to take to graduate in arizona. The same test a new american takes. These are things [ applause ] these are things weve been able to get done at the state level, that i think has been good commonsense leadership. When i look at this new administration, i look at, you know, the education category, the health care sector, and, of course, social services. I mean, to me weve got thousands of arizonans that are out of work. And weve got thousands of job openings. Yet weve got the federal government giving people a check every two weeks. Wed like to take these people and give them the job opportunity, the opportunity to build a fulfilling career. I think if we are in a position to ask mother may i to health and human services, or welfare, we can really make the difference at the state level. And thats something im looking forward to advocating as a governor this week at the National Governors association. Great. [ applause ] governor brownback . Thank you, guys. Im delighted to be here at cpac. Fabulous organization. Keep it up. And i want to ask you, youve got to match the energy of the left with the energy from the right. Weve got to have good Energy Moving forward. Weve got to be passionate about what we stand for. Weve got to push, and push aggressively. [ applause ] theres a lot of motivation out there. Youve got to match that side to side. One of the things that i think we can do, and there are a number of things we can do i think better than the federal government, but one weve done in particular, weve got the numbers for it, welfare reform. Simple thing. Said, look, if you are able bodied without dependents, you have to either apply for work or take job training to be able to get the payment from the government. [ applause ] and what happened this is amazing. We tracked everybody. Afterwards we said, what happened . We had a decline in the welfare rolls, but peoples income tripled doing that. They went up 120 on average. And we tripled the number of people getting out of poverty. Which should be our measure. And welfare is not how many people you have on it, but how many people you get out of poverty. [ applause ] this is one of the things we need to do. I really hope its something we take on as a conservative movement. Because the welfare programs that the left has put in place since lbj have failed. Trillions of dollars in it, and put a number of people in a very difficult, if not a situation where theyre just held down. And they need to be liberated and have the dignity that comes with having their own job and moving forward. Weve shown that. We need to expand that and be given more opportunities from the federal government for us to be able to innovate at the state levels. [ applause ] Governor Walker . First off, im confused. When i came out here i thought i see arizona, i see kansas, wisconsin, kentucky. I think this is the final four show right here. Watch for all of us, right . We know who the champion will be. Oh, yeah, yes, we do. I still have my bourbon from beating kentucky a few years ago. But actually, i would say on those two questions. I echo exactly what sam said. I talked about welfare reform this morning. When i first came in as governor, it was interesting, the person who was our secretary of work force development, like the federal department of labor, that person said to me, what should be my measure of success . Because my predecessor measured how many more people they could sign up for unemployment insurance. It was bringing federal money into the state. That was their argument. I said its how many people no longer need unemployment insurance. Not because we kicked them out, it was because we helped them get a job. Yes. [ applause ] and i think thats a consistency you see from the republican dpochb nors. The other part of your question, rick, is what part the federal government should get out of. I think the better question to that is, what part should they not get out of it. To me, other than the military and preserving things like Social Security and medicare, i think about Everything Else is better done by the states. [ applause ] i just reached in my pocket, and i never say the f word, federalism, ill make an exception, i say most americans actually think that that means more federal government. When i tell people, take a dollar out of your pocket, out of your wallet or your purse and ask yourself, where would you rather send this dollar, would you rather send it to washington where you get pennies on the dollar back, or would you rather keep it in your School Back Home . Would you rather send it to washington, or would you rather keep it back in your local community and in your state where you can fix your roads and your bridges . Would you rather send it to washington where you get pennies on your dollar back or keep it back in your communities where you can take care of the needy the way you see fit in your state and not have the federal government dictate it . I hope with the new president and congress, i hope we can have more go back as the founders intended to the states. [ applause ] governor . Ill tell you, in kentucky, when i was elected in 2015, we had a democrat controlled house. The last one in the south. So it makes it difficult when you come in. They had had control, uninterrupted, since 1920. They had had the majority for 96 straight years. It was expected that would continue. Were a state heavily registered in the democrat side of the aisle. All that to say, what the powerful thing about a governor is, not only as it relates to what we can do individually as states, but in pushing back by the overreach by the government, is be sounding boards for good ideas, common sense, foundational principles, the constitutional principles this nation was built on. So we worked on things that we could get done from a bipartisan standpoint in the first place, but then i said, you know what, i dont want to have 44 out of 100 people which is what we had when i was elected. I spent a year also working to try to do something about that, with the energy of a lot of people like those in this room, we did do something about that. And now we have a super majority. 64 out of 100 seats one year later. [ applause ] and in that first week, that first week of this new majority in the house, in five days, we passed righttowork legislation, we repealed the prevailing wage, abolished the most corrupt crony board in the state. Passed a transparency bill, put a 20week ban on abortion and passed an ultrasound bill in five days. Five days. [ applause ] which goes to show the power leadership goes a long way. These gentlemen i take a lot of cues from. They have a lot more experience at this than me. Ive never been elected to anything prior in my life prior to being governor. Its frankly, everything you imagine it to be in bureaucracy, but we have the ability to influence things in a positive way. What i hope the government would do less of, im encouraged by the people that are being appointed in this new administration at the cabinet level. Im very, very encouraged. [ applause ] because, frankly, i wear this lapel pin, its a pair of scissors cutting red tape. We need to cut red tape in america. The wonderful thing about it, doesnt matter if youre a liberal or conservative, doesnt matter if youre republican or democrat or somewhere in between, nobody likes red tape. While he was digging in his pocket, i reached in my pocket, dont you think other goch nors would look good with a cut the red tape button . Here you go. Heres one for you. One for you. [ applause ] i encourage any and all people to steal this idea, including the federal government. We pledge to cutting 30 of all of the red tape in kentucky in the next three years. We have 130,000 rules, pretty confident we can govern everybody with 90 some thousand. [ applause ] lets get into the weeds a little bit on the back half of that first question. In your daytoday governing, where does it drive you crazy that youve got to deal with all these federal regulations . What are the businesses in your states saying about those regulations . Maybe its not you, maybe its the people that you work for in your states. What is driving them the craziest about whats going on . So, as a conservative, we know that lower taxes makes your state more attractive to work, or it do business in. Also, the reduction of these regulations. We set up a website this year in my state of the state, i announced it as we launched it, called red tape. Gov. Az. We want the Small Business owners to give us suggestions. If its a regulation that doesnt protect Public Safety or consumer safety, our team is going to do the research and get rid of it. There are hundreds of regulations. We have a goal to get rid of 500 regulations this year alone in the state of arizona. [ applause ] the larger regulatory tangle en masse is at the federal level. I want to echo what Governor Bevin said. Im thrilled with this cabinet that President Trump has appointed. [ applause ] and even more so, that there is a former governor who understands what red tape can do at the state level, named mike pence, as vice president. [ cheers and applause ] and if we can get a joint cooperative effort and states compete, and governors compete, the world of ice cream people vote with their dollars, in the game of states, people vote with their feet. Yes. And the better we can make our states, i think if you see the lower taxes, lighter regulation states versus the nine highest taxed states, you see people moving from one zip code to another state, p 70 of the adults in the state of arizona came from somewhere else. So i like to say, people either live in arizona, or are planning to moving to arizona, thats the type of tax and Regulatory Environment that we want to have. Great. I think on a daily basis, if youre asking the biggest piece, its obamacare. Its recent. Its been put in place. Its driven up insurance prices. Its driven people out of the insurance marketplace. And into medicaid. I think thats the one that really needs to be taken down, it needs to be addressed, in a politically sound fashion, but thats the one i want to back up on an earlier question. You said what can be done better at the federal level . I think we can deal with hotbutton issues better at the local level. Roe versus wade needs to be repealed and driven to the state level. Let it be handled by the states. [ applause ] thats what will happen when roe is repealed. When its repealed, the issue goes to the states. Then the states decide this difficult this is a difficult social issue. Im prolife. But this would be much better handled at a statebystate basis, then people can look and adjust the policies as they see fit there. That would be much better handled at a state level. [ applause ] i think we all hear about obamacare quite a bit. I would echo, and just add, and i love the cabinet, particularly love the new administrator at the epa, administrator pruitt, who i think is going to be great, but i would stress weve made all kinds of reforms, and included agencies like our department of Natural Resources which is our epa equivalent at the state level, and i cant tell you how many times, its great to hear employers say, wow, the dnr, which is what its called, is so much better to deal with than it was before. But, and theres almost a but, but the epa is still messing things up. So i love the cabinet and i love the new administrator. My hope would be with this president , with this congress, that they go further than just putting good people in, because what weve seen in our states is, until you make transformational changes in agencies, you can have people at the top, but the bureaucracy is still there. My hope is the congress would not only work with the president and administration to reorganize and in some cases not just reorganize existing structures, but send more back to the states. Epa, states could do that better. Let states handle that. There are 50 of us that handle that. Let us decide those decisions, not the federal government. [ applause ] i agree completely with those things that were said. Its interesting when you this i about what is the one area we have felt the most encroachment. Its hard to think of a single one. I think even of just the lawsuits, ive been governor for a year, the lawsuits ive had to engage in on behalf of the commonwealth of kentucky against the federal government. Pushing back against the federal government dictating who goes into our locker rooms and bathrooms in the Public Schools is number one. Number two, pushing back in a lawsuit against the federal government dictating which doctors would or would not in fact in their instance all would be required to perform sex change operations under fear of losing their license, pushing back on that. Pushing back on the overtime rule that came out of the department of labor that was trying to be jammed down the throat of Small Business. You mentioned the epa. The streams rules. The methane rule. These are just a handful of the suits that weve been involved in in the last year. The Environmental Protection agency truly has become a regulatory frankenstein. It started with good intentions. Read shelleys book about frankenstein, it, too, was created with good intention, and it turned on its creator. Nobody wants to drink dirty water or breathe dirty air. Theres not a state that to Governor Walkers point could not manage this and not be incentivized to manage this at the state level. The fact of the matter is, whether its the environment, education, whether its commerce, whatever the case might be in on the energy front as well, push these things back to the state level control. That is where federalism was intended to be in the first place. [ applause ] lets follow that line of thought. How do we make that happen . How do we in effect turn back the clock and return the power to the states . How can our federal representatives help us do that . Let me Say Something on that real quick. Youre how we make it happen. Literally. [ cheers and applause ] this is what a government of and by and for the people does. If we abdica