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tv Key Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN February 21, 2015 4:30am-6:31am EST
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means we've got to have the most competitive economy in the world. so we're very clear. here's how we're going to help businesses churn out good jobs for americans to fill. and that means working to build a modern transportation and communications system. it means helping more companies sell goods overseas, with strong new trade agreements that aren't just free but fair and level the playing field for american workers. it means investing in the research and technology that unleashes new jobs and new industries right here in america. we're very clear and specific. it's right there, about how we can do it. and we know it works, because we've seen it work before. we know middle class economics means getting rid of special interest giveaways in our tax code for folks who don't need them, so we can actually give tax breaks to middle class families who do need them. >> yes. president obama: we know if we close loopholes
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that reward companies that stash profits overseas, we can reward companies that invest here in america. we know if we close loopholes that allow the top 1% to avoid paying taxes on their accumulated wealth, we can use that to help middle class families pay for child care and send their kids to college and that will help the entire economy grow. we need a tax code that helps working americans trying to get a leg up in this new economy. and that's what we're fighting for. so we don't just talk the walk. -- we do not just talk the talk, we are walking the walk every day. i'm telling you, democrats, we should never worry about fighting for these issues, because they are not only right, the american people stand right beside us on most of those issues. sometimes that gets lost with all the money that's being spent by outside forces and the distortions and confusion. but when you actually look at
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the americans -- do they agree with our policies? do they think these policies would help them? and when there is a fair presentation of the policies the other side is offering, the american people are with us every time. but maybe we'll bring them around. and i think there are actual places where we can work together, like reforming america's criminal justice system so it protects and serves all of us. and it is fair. [applause] i'm looking forward to working with them. but until they start wanting to walk and not just talk, we're going to keep offering the american people something better. we're going to offer the american people a vision that believes in opportunity, not just for a few but for everybody. we've got to be the party that believes nobody should be treated like a second class person, regardless of what you
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look like, where you come from or who you love. we've got to be the party that doesn't just recognize the threat of climate change but actually does something about it for the sake of our kids. [applause] we're the party that's willing to make tough decisions. we've got to be the party that practices a better kind of politics, not just in washington but in every community in america and that appeals to the basic decency of the american people, that sees our differences as a source of strength, that gives young people a sense of purpose and possibility and asks them to participate in our great democracy, that appeals not to fear but to hope. [applause] because this is not just about us in this room. this is not just a sports contest. this is not just about who is up and down at any given point, not about notches on a belt, not about ideological battles, proving how smart you are. not about the back-and-forth of
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politics. it's about doing things that make peoples' lives better. it's about doing things that make us confident that america will continue on this upward trajectory that began so many years ago. it's about making this nation we love more perfect. [applause] we are democrats! we don't just want people to share in america's success. we want to see everybody contributing to america's success and building a smarter and stronger economy, forging a better and kinder society. and writing the next great chapter in this great country's amazing story. that is what we are doing together. still moving forward. thank you, democrats. god bless you! god bless america! let's get to work! [applause] ♪
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>> on wednesday, former new york city mayor and republican presidential candidate rudy giuliani said, quote, i do not believe that the president loves america. at his daily briefing, white house spokesman josh earnest was asked to comment. >> do you think rudy giuliani had lost it? >> i -- i don't know. will you will you you but look, anytime we have -- will you there is somebody who has attained a certain level of public stature and even admiration, to see that person aadmiration, to see that person so thoroughly that are nish
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their -- tarnish their legacy, it's sad. you will again, there's no element of that the people are feeling around here. i think what people are feeling is sorry for rudy giuliani. >> again on this specific allegation, which, you know, however you want to characterize it, he says he doesn't believe the president loves america. >> well, again, there are a number of examples. and john, you've traveled around the world with the president. so you know firsthand that there are a number of situations which the president said exactly that. the most high profile example was the last line of the state of the union, in which the country said god bless this country we love. >> what makes somebody of that stature, rudy giuliani, what makes them say something like that? >> i don't know. >> josh earnest was also asked about a recent judicial ruling and striking down the president's executive actions on immigration.
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>> a couple of days ago, you said that the administration would make a decision in a couple of days about whether to -- [inaudible] has a decision been made? >> roberta, what i can tell you is that the department of justice has made a decision to file a stay in this case. i would anticipate that they will file documents at the district court level on monday at the latest. and so when they have filed those documents, they and we will be in a position to talk a little bit more about our legal strategy. that, of course, is separate and apart from our intents to pursue an appeal. that was something we announced in the immediate aftermath of the decision. and we will seek that appeal because we believe that when you evaluate the legal merits of the arguments, that there is a solid legal foundation for the president to take the steps he you announced late last year to reform our broken immigration system. that's consistent with the way that previous presidents over
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the course of several decades have used their executive authority. and that is why, you know, we're going to continue to pursue this case through the legal system. >> so by filing a stay, what does that mean for people who are considering filing their paperwork for -- >> the department of homeland security has also put out a statement indicating that at this point they're not prepared to accept applications for the program that the president announced at the end of last year. but once we have taken some additional steps through this legal process, we may be in a position to give you an yaup date about the status -- an adate about the status -- an update about the status of implementing the program. some of this will depend on the in way that the question of the stay is resolved. >> you can watch the rest of the white house daily briefing on our website, c-span.org, where you can find video of all the events we cover, along with viewer-generated video clips and you are generated scheduling information.
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here are some of the featured programs for this weekend on the c-span network. this morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern, our nation's governors get together to discuss issues affecting their states. guests include danny meyer, ceo of union square hospitality group and marie about to rumble of fox business news. sunday morning at 11:00, we continue live coverage of the national governors association meeting. on c-span two, today at noon, book t.v. is on the road, experiencing the literary life of greensboro, north carolina, part of the 2015 c-span cities tour. and sunday at 9 p.m., on afterwards, west moore retraces his career choices from combat veteran to white house fellow, wall street banker, to social entrepreneur, to find his life's purpose. and on american history t.v.
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on c-span three, tonight just after 7:00 the 1963 interview of former nation of islam minister malcolm x, discussing race relations and opposition to racial integration. sunday at 6:30 p.m. eastern, john tells the story to have a husband and wife kgb spy team that infiltrated the c.i.a. through the use of sex in the 1970's. find our complete schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com or send us a tweet at #comments. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> the memories come flooding back for so many people who
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until today, had lost such a big part of their childhood. some bearing the memories and with it, the history of this camp. now more than 60 years later this sunday on q&a the real reason for this camp. >> the government comes to the fathers and says, we have a deal for you. we will reunite you with your families in the crystal city internment camp, the family internment camp. if you agree to go voluntarily and then i discovered what the real secret of the camp was. they also had to agree to voluntarily repatriate to germany and japan is the government decided they needed to be repatriated. the truth of the matter is that
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the crystal city camp was humanely administered by the ins , but the special ward divisions of the department of states used it as roosevelt's primary prisoner exchange. it was the center of roosevelt's prisoner exchange program. sunday night at eight eastern and specific c-span's "q&a." >> governors from around the country are in washington, d.c. for the national governors association winter meeting. some of them sat down for interviews with politico to discuss health care, job creation and the 2016 presidential race. including tennessee governor bill haslam, florida governor rick scott, rhode island governor gina raimondo and virginia governor terry mcauliffe. this is two hours. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you, marty. and thank you again, the second
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or third team, for bearing the elements to be here. it's a really exciting lineup. we're lucky to start with governor haslam, who just had -- >> how did i get the morning call? [laughter] >> record lows. >> he said, you come in early. >> just one reelection with 70% of the vote. congratulations on the second term. as i think was just said, former mayor of knoxville, one election in 2010. since you've taken office, you've done a lot. you stripped back teacher tenure protections, enacted tort reform, expanded charter schools. now you'll have four more years. we'll talk about some of your agenda for that. you've earned a reputation in tennessee for kind of an ernest no-drama guy, practical. a lot of governors have talked about you, describe you as a workhorse, not a show horse, someone who is eager to talk to both sides of the policy ideas and actually wants to talk about
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policy, kind of that self-defacing manner that has helped make you very popular in tennessee, so much so that no real democrat really ran against you last time. all of those things made you, to some, a surprising pick to be the republican governor's association chair. it's typically a job where you throw a lot of red meat. you're an attack dog. that's just not your style. >> it's not. i think in politics you start to get in trouble when you're not who you are, when you try to wear someone else's clothes and it doesn't work. that's not who i am, not why i ran for service. that might not be me, but i still think r.g.a. has a really important role to play, and for r.g.a. to be successful matters to republican governors like me and a lot of other people. >> first, i do want to start on the policy front and on the state solutions. you just called a special session at the start of your new term, to expand medicaid. you spent months negotiating
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with the federal government. you got buy-in from the hospitals, from the chamber, a whole host of different groups. then it got killed. >> quickly. >> it died a quick death in a special committee. i want to talk about what the future is there. but i also want to get the big picture, because we're talking to a lot of governors today. it's the national governors association weekend here. matt in wyoming tried to do the same thing. rick scott, our next speaker said he wanted to expand medicaid, got nowhere. dead on arrival in the state legislature. john kasich in ohio had to go around his legislature to do it. we've seen a lot of republican governors say let's do this, let's get people coverage. then their own party's legislature blocks it. it's not unique. what do you think is going on there? what is driving that? >> i think, from my standpoint listen, i'm not a fan of the affordable care act either.
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but not really for the reasons that most people start with. the thing i think they messed up with was this. there are two huge issues around health care in our country. number one, access. and no matter what party you're in, you should see that if someone's primary method of health care is going to the emergency room, it's not good for them. not smart cost-wise, so access is an issue. everybody should say that. the second thing is cost. my issue with the affordable care act, and if you look at how they did it, they didn't really attack the cost side in ways that they could. everything from, you know, medicare being able to negotiate for pharmacy benefits and you can keep on going down the line for things they could have done at the time. so the issue is this. if you're going to attack a problem, you should be really upset when people take the easy apple but don't go get the hard one. the easy apple is let's cover more people. that's hard for people to argue against politically. a if you get everybody, the health little care providers are getting paid for people they weren't getting paid for, and now they are.
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the hard thing was to attract the hard thing was to attract cost. in state government, the federal your government, that's eating up everybody's government. you've all heard the joke that the u.s. government is about to be a large health care system one ofbe a large health care system that's got an army and a navy. your that's got an army and a navy. that is why tuition is going up. we have to do something to address the costs. our revised kind of proposal for what to do about medicaid, we think, addresses the cost side on both the users' side by having some incentive for thehaving some incentive for premiums and copays, but that you could get reimbursed for if you made healthy choices. if you got an annual physical, things anybody can do regardless of their economic circumstances. you could get credit back to your account for that. on the providers' side, to really move toward more of an outcome based system instead of just fee for service. you're paying the anesthesiologist, the pharmacist, and say, no, we're going to pay ex-dollars and -- x-dollars and pay even more if you have a good result.
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obviously what happened is, in on our state, we have a very red state. we have 132 state legislators. 100 of them are republican. i'm the first governor in will history to ever serve with a republican majority. so we went from rarely ever having a republican majority to having these -- i used to call it we went from a majority to a supermajority. now they call it a super duper majority. [laughter] anyway, we had this history kind of blue to red switch. we have so many legislators that were terrified of being identified with something that said obamacare. >> is the obamacare just brand so toxic that even though you can argue it's not obamacare -- >> there's no question. and when we made the argument, we said here's what obamacare is, everything from the individual mandate, everything they did. and here's what we're saying, in a program that, again, had premiums and copays, that really
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was a different idea. but it was hard to get away from that. and i think some of that -- i mean, you can say, well, they should get past the politics. some of that urn fortunately is the leftover residue on passing something on a totally partisan basis. that all led people to say well, we can't really trust them. >> in your state of the state speech -- you asked if it is such a toxic brand in the went and did some of her to get there, is medicaid expansion going to happen while you're governor? >> i certainly hope so. again, we think that the approach we made was a really practical, smart answer to a real problem. we still have -- you know, the program we think would have covered an additional 285,000 tennesseeians who don't have health insurance. they're getting health insurance, just in the wrong way. the emergency room is getting care at the wrong place, wrong time, wrong way.
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so what we want to do is provide a different way to get health coverage, which is still important, and to do something to attack the cost curve, which is still important. we have providers willing to work with us on payment reform. but they're going to work with us a little more wholeheartedly if they see coverage for people that they're not getting paid for now. >> one of the opponents' arguments, and it's a substantive argument, is that the federal government is going to leave states holding the bag, that they're going to cover for the first couple of years, then they're just not going to provide the money and all these people are going to have care and it will be a tough situation. do you think the federal government will be good for the money? >> well, let me say this. this is going to sound like an odd thing for a problem to argue. -- for a republican to argue. but we're talking about the united states of america has never missed a medicaid payment. that's what we're talking about. that's important to remember. there is some fear from folks,
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and that's, if you like it, you can keep it, all that stuff kind of built into the fear that people have. but in our case, we actually had really what the supreme court ruling said, that said that the federal government couldn't force states to expand who they covered. so if they can't force you to expand who they covered, then they can't make you keep covering those folks. we had a supreme court ruling. we had an attorney general of our state give a ruling that said if we didn't want to cover them any longer, we didn't have to. then we had a letter saying the same thing. but, again, people just couldn't get past the concern. >> let's switch over to education. you're kind of an education governor in a lot of ways. you accepted the top funds. you signed legislation last year guaranteeing two free years of community college tuition for tennessee high school graduates. in fact, president obama praised you during an education summit in nashville. what do you make of obama's community college plan? is it distinct from yours? >> you're always flattered to be copied. and so he came to tennessee to
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>> in tennessee was the fastest improving state in the country and actually made the biggest gain of any state ever. that was a big deal because you have objective measure that results are happening. >> so you have three races this year in three red states. mississippi is an easy hold in -- and louisiana. >> governor holden will be happy to hear you say that. >> in kentucky, you have had an outgoing democratic who was pretty outgoing. democrats have kind of cold last edited and had a unity press conference last week. the first television ads of 2015
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are running. the kentuckians were bombarded with the top senate race and now they are being bombarded again already. you have three republicans who can lay out some rationale for being able to do it. however star you about the republican primary there, making it harder to pick up betsy? >> i think romney won by eight or 10 there, i do not remember. it was not a squeaker. kentucky in -- kentuckians have really control the governor's mansion. it is a state where it is the anomaly of states in that region. >> like tennessee? >> that is probably fair. when you talk to them, they say they want to do what we did in terms of flipping the state house. i do not think primaries are bad. .
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the democrats had a solo candidate who was the son of a popular former governor. we went through a hard year and a half long primary and our ads started earlier and ended earlier than the kentucky once it. it was a good one because in the process, you become better and you know the state more. people see you in the middle of a contest, but i do not think that is all bad if you have good candidates. >> a greater than 50% chance? >> i do not know that yet, but we do have three races. we have louisiana mississippi where we have a popular income, but kentucky where there is a democrat but it is a red state and we should have a real chance. we will put some real focus into kentucky. >> right now, republicans have
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31 government ships which helps with fundraising and everything else. most republican governors, next year the 2016, is pretty good for republicans. a big part of your job this year's recruiting and ensuring the right candidates get in on these races. if republicans currently control 31 governorships, talk about some of the races next year. it's a presidential year, which is bad for places like illinois and pennsylvania but good for republicans. there's opportunities in missouri, west virginia, monta. what is the -- in montana. what is the high water mark? >> first of all, you're right. in this job, even though you're chair for one year, basically the first year of a cycle, is to think through the next four years. really, what we have to be thinking about is we have a lot of republicans that came in like i did in the wave of 2010, kind of the first obama midterm. those folks will all be term limited in '18. you think of everything from
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martinez to haley. you can go across the map and see a lot. when i came in, my republican new governors class was like 15 -- i don't remember. but it was a lot, almost 14, 15 folks. so ultimately, what you're trying to do is put in a four-year plan. when that happens, everything from fund-raising to a government support system. i don't know that number yet in terms of -- we really want to be at 30, whatever. i mean, obviously when you're at 31, every pickup is big. we were shocked to basically not -- i shouldn't say shocked. we were pleasantly surprised to get to 31 this year. >> we've gotten to 32 if not for alaska. >> yeah. of course, who saw that coming? you had two opponents kind of teamed up together against shawn. we went ahead -- governor parnell is still there. >> you're d.g.a. counterpart, the democratic governor
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association chair, he's in cycle next year. he's up. do you think he's beatable? is that a race that you think -- >> i honestly don't know the answer. montana is a state we should be able to compete in. if you look at the national map, montana is a state that republicans can go in. and i think the other thing is we've shown we can compete anywhere. you go, okay, we can compete anywhere. so that will be a race that i'm certain will get some r.g.a. resources. >> you talked about the tough decisions a lot of these governors are making tough calls, making the budget cuts. that obviously has a negative impact on their approval ratings. you are sending constituents to support. in north carolina, we've seen that, pat mccrory. kind of in a lot of ways north carolina had a similar issue asen tennessee. -- similar profile to tennessee. polls could potentially be very vulnerable next year. how much work can you do at the
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r.g.a. to help them, to make sure he's well-positioned? >> the answer to that is a lot. i think pat knows he has a very serious race coming and he's preparing that. and at r.g.a., we're preparing to help him do that. pat did come in and make some difficult budget decisions early. i think what people miss about government is this. they think you're deciding between good things and bad things when you're looking at a budget. but you're really not. you're deciding between good things and other good things. people say, why don't you build more sidewalks? yeah, that's great. why don't you pay school teachers more? why don't you do more to approve more business here. why don't you pay more taxes? not so excited about it. that's the challenge of government. it's about prioritizing. and you started talking about kind of backgrounds and how people act in office.
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i think it's one of those things that background matters, what you've done before. so for me, being a mayor was great preparation for being governor, because its does make you be a lot more practical. the whole there has never been a republican or democrat pothole. it's true when you're mayor. people want their garbage picked up, their streets cleared of snow on days like this. they'll make sure that the drainage ditch behind their house works. all that stuff about delivering service is what's really important. i think that's one of the things you'll see from governors is we get it. people want government that works. >> do you think the next president will be a governor? >> i think -- i mean, if you look at historically, i think there's a good chance of that. and there's a good argument to be made. listen, i'm the r.g.a. chair. we have a -- well -- you have to say it. we have several of our members. i tell people, we have 31 republican governors. anywhere from three to 30 are thinking about running for president. i can say 30, because i know i'm
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not. we obviously have a lot of folks. it really is a practical advantage. it's interesting. we had a program. there's a program in nashville last night where former president bush, 43 and clinton were together on kind of just the two of them talking about things. you did realize, as they talked, both how much each of them were influenced as president from being governor before. >> absolutely. what is the dynamic like at this point in the presidential cycle? you're having these r.g.a. meetings, heading them all up to do fund-raising for you. a lot of these guys are doing their own fund-raising. is it awkward sometimes in the meetings? >> remarkably not. you would think that. you would think, okay, these guys are running against each other. but remember, they've been around each other. bobby was the r.g.a. chair two years ago. and i think maybe scott was the vice chair then. chris was the chair last year and bobby was his vice chair. so they've all been working together. obviously, you know, if you're
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in a competitive race, you're in a competitive race and you know that. it's difficult. but they are folks who are used to that. they knew that was part of the deal when they signed up. fortunately for me, they've all said, hey, one of my first things is i know a lot of you have other interests, but i need you all to continue helping r.g.a. to a person, they all said we get it. we've been in your shoes and we'll help. >> great. we have a couple of questions from people in the audience. and please send more. it's #polgovs. the first question is, how does your administration intend to implement common core? >> okay. so great question. so a little background. as you said, tennessee was actually one of the first winners of race to the top. not the first, we were the big winner. my predecessor actually, a democrat, made the application. tennessee actually was awarded $500 million.
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so we were one of the early adopters of a lot of pieces that came with that. and due to a lot of things happening in tennessee, we're actually the fastest improving state in the country, in education results. a lot of that was about raising standards for us. the issue, i tell people in tennessee, is like this. prior to this, when every state could set its own standard of what is proficient, it was like we set our basketball goals at six feet. then we were so excited because everybody on the team could dunk. that was great but when we went to real 10-foot goals, it wasn't very helpful. the process of raising our standards and being very specific about what we expected third graders to know and eighth graders to know has been really important for us in tennessee. there's -- common core, it's really maybe one of the most damaged brands ever. they understand a whole lot about brand marketing. but the issue with common core is this.
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anything that anybody doesn't like about education, they have dumped it there. >> it's not obama core. >> but it's like, if you think there's too much testing in schools, well that's common core. no, it's not. common core is about state standards. if you think you don't like the way they're teaching world history now, that's common core. no. common core is about english and math. i had a woman who is, you know very informed woman but she was convinced that we were teaching sex education to her kindergartner because of common core. no. but if enough people believe something about a brand, that's what it is. what we did in tennessee is this. those standards have been in place for four years. we typically review standards every six years. what we said is, that's fine. we're just going to speed up our whole review of the standards process, which we should do anyway. now we have four years of history of teachers who said i've actually been teaching that to sixth graders for four years. this is a good expectation, this is not.
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so we're going back in and reviewing all of our standards to see if they're right and we're taking the four years' track record that we have. >> great. next question from richard. with the lack of federal action on transition funding, what are your -- transportation funding what are your plans to increase funding? >> really good question. where obviously -- the federal funding really matters to state. but most states haven't changed their gas taxes either. i have said we're going to have to address that, but i don't want to deal it until we have a real long-term plan from our transportation department. we already have a plan in terms of we've got billions of backed up projects. but a specific, if we change the funding, here's what we would do instead. second, a plan on the funding side that said it's not just a band-aid to give us two more years down the road but it has a thoughtful approach to how we'll do that.
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but all states are in the situation we're in. tennessee is one of the only states that doesn't use debt for our infrastructure funding. so a lot of states are actually paying more in interest now been receiving in federal funds. they have just been borrowing which is great as long as the federal money was coming. fortunately, and this was not just me, we got in the habit of pay-as-you-go. that is sometimes frustrating to them for structure people >> what do you make of the republican congress and the first it 60 days on the job? >> political situation is much easier than theirs.
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the senate is great but unless you get 60, you really can't do anything. so they have a lot of limits that we don't deal with. and they deal with -- i mean, we have partisan politics. theirs is obviously out of control where they spend a lot of time just positioning against each other. you've got to look at what the senate has actually tried to move and do versus what they did all of last year, and you say there's been some progress under leader mcconnell. >> something like the dhs funding. do you watch that and roll your eyes on that issue, or is that kind of just politics as usual?
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>> i think it's -- i think one of the realities, and i worry about it at the state level but it's true at the national level there are a lot of people who make their living off of keeping things stirred up. and that's not good for the country. and in the states, we're able to fend off some of that. and i'm saying that not just about dhs but in general about the way things work around here. i think if you actually went to folks in congress, they'd tell that same thing. we're frustrated about how many people either raise money about things being stirred up or make point
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would be, is it to win? not to be able to -- you couldn't just come out of one part of the state and bowl over everybody. you had to really -- you had to do well in all parts. so, it forced you to be out listening to people. i can't the more you are out. it's a good part about democracy. i think the three differentnates of tennessee forced you to listen. when i ran, i am from east tennessee. when i go to memphis, they would
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be like william, how do we know you are going to care about us? to win you better show them you understand their city and that means understanding their problems. >> governor, it has been so great to have you. this is a great conversation. thank you for the excellent questions. appreciate the time. best of luck in your second term. >> thank you for having me. appreciate it. >> now we are going to quickly move move on and bring in rick scott, the governor of florida. >> welcome to frigid washington. >> i know. we have houses, condos hotels. it's warm. naples, my hometown is 75. the beaches are clear. there is no rain.
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>> tallahassee, is that hard? >> don't go out as much. >> i moved to florida because i don't like cold weather. way too cold for me. even texas was. they have icestorms. >> right. >> unbelievable here yeah. >> thank you for being here. just a quick introduction. rick scott just won reelection. he won with 7% an easy reelect. you won by 1%. a win is a win. >> didn't waste any dollars, any effort. the. >> you just starting your second term. you served in the united states navy before starting your very successful business career. you joined the dallas firm as you noted, in 1987 at 34. you co-founded columbia hospital corporation with two partners that became columbia hca the
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largest for-private healthcare company in america. in 2010, you took on the republican establishment. that's part of your profile, ran against a sitting attorney general. >> everybody is indoors. you won. >> ever poll said i would lose. >> the poll said you could lose again in 2014 and you won and now you are here. now, you are starting your second term. next week, you are going to pennsylvania making a lot of upcoming trips on jobs. >> jobs. >> which is something you have always loved to, to stalk about. lazer focus on jobs. tell me what you are planning and what's motivating you to go on the road. >> sure. >> my background is it's all about i grew up knowing jobs were important. i don't know my natural father. my mother went through a divorce when i was born. she remarried a little while later. so, i have an adopted dad.
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we lived in public housing. my parents didn't have jobs often. i watched them struggle to put food on the table, pay the rent. i remember when dad's car got repossessed. that's a tough life. in my life i always focus on jobs. i got married at 19. i have had a wonderful marriage. we have two daughters and i talk to them always about getting a job. so they love that. so but so in 20s 10, here is where our state was. the state of florida -- think about this for a second. this is one of the most beautiful places in the world to live. we had lost 832,000 jobs in four years. in four years, housing prices had dropped in four years, unemployment from 3.5 to 11%. the state borrowed basically 8.7, 8.the 2, owed the fed 3 and a half for unemployment debt. nothing was changing.
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and so we had big budget deficits. so, i ran on my whole campaign was: if you asked me the weather i talked about jobs. it was 700,000 jobs over seven years and to the shock of everybody, i won. because if tu think about a typical family, what do they care about? step 1, i want a job. so what? they want to work. people don't -- they are not looking for another government program. they want to work. no. 2, when they have children they are saying i want a good education system because i know for my child to have a shot at the american dream is an education and they want to live in a safe community. those are the three things i have thought about every day. i walked in with a $4 billion budget deficit. cut taxes 40 times. cut 3100 regulations, streamlined just to get a professional license i started my, as governor it was 47 days in florida. >> 47 days. >> 41.7 days on average.
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what's happened is jobs have come back. 728,000 jobs. we have 88,000 people on unemployment today out of 20 million people. we are bigger than new york now and we have 279,000 job openings right now in the state of florida. housing prices are way up. the state's packed. and we've gone from a $4 billion budget deficit to a $1.8 billion surplus after cutting all of those taxes and after paying off all of that debt. so, i am unabashedly going after jobs. i will be in pennsylvania. i love it with other governs want to raise taxes. it's good for us. the new governor of pennsylvania wants to raise taxes. that's going to make those companies less competitive. we are competing globally whether we all like it or not. when you think about what you buy, how many times do you say, i am only going to buy if it's made in pennsylvania or virginia or district of columbia.
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you don't. we are competing. when other governors make it raising taxes we are growing. i have done 10 trade missions around the world recruiting from all around the united states and pennsylvania will be one of the many states i go to. >> the new democratic governor of pennsylvania you referred to he called this a political stunt. he said the stagnant economy we inherited from a republican is not our doing. you didn't come here under our predecessor. what do you say when you get that kind of push back? >> i have been recruiting companies. we have done in four years, we have had -- we have won over 40 oh, come petitive projects. companies like hertz to move to florida. 700 jobs, averaging over 100, lockheed martin, at&t, verizon. i have gone after jobs in every state. my biggest competitor has been
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rick perry. when i won my election in 20s 10, i had met rick perry but didn't really know him. we met at an event. i told him i am going to kick your rear because you have been the gold standard for jobs. i have gone after jobs. he went on national television and joke about who was the best state. i joke now he is given up. i try to recruit companies from all over the united states and all over the world. i want florida to be the place where if you grew up in florida you want to live in florida, you know you can get a job and your kits can get a great education. >> how helpful is that with perry? >> good because when i got started doing this texas was a gold standard. they didn't lose jobs in the recession. florida had lost all of those jobs. so, if i could be perceived to be competitive with texas, it was good for us. we went on squawk box different
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shows together. we did some forums together and i just asked him to say you are worried about us. that's all i want you to say. >> who will be your foil now? >> any governor who wants to raise taxes. so, i am appreciative of the governor of pennsylvania raising taxes. >> are you going to recruit from republican states? >> all the time. i thinkicited very difficult now for the northern states to -- for them to compete with us because put yourself in a position of a company. you have got to solve your customer needs. if we have a great workforce, which we do if we have no income tax for your employees, very little business tax less regulations, faster permitting do you think you can solve your needs fast ner florida than other states? sure. that's what we are going to do. florida is already the second biggest aviation aerospace state as far as number of jobs. the only state beating us is
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texas. we are absolutely the third most technology company in the united states. we are growing our businesses very rapid on top of the fact 97 million tourists. weather is good for upset. a lot of people are coming down. last weekend, i think was the busiest tourist weekend in the state of florida. president's weekend. so all of that is good. also we've got 15 seaports with the expansion of the panama canal, the miami port will be dredged to 50 feet before the canal is done. all of the ports we have up and down each of our costs, we should be the shipping capital for the east coast. with the strike out on the west coast, it's good for us. it was good for us in 2002. that was good for us. we are getting more shipping. >> what's it like? every job is a win in its own little way but do you have a metric or a target of i want to bring 100,000 jobs to florida by the ends of the second term?
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>> 28,000 the first term. so i would like to -- >> you could say this was a job that was in pennsylvania we bra brought to florida. not necessarily from pennsylvania. >> you know what you do most -- the things that get all of the press are the big companies like hertz moving it corporate. but the truth is it's mostly small companies. stop by dunkin' donuts and shakes hands and people will moving their businesses. they are moving a 2% business or 5% business because they are tired. they are tired of more taxes, more regulation. they are tired of the weather. they are tired of all of it and then if they are doing business in latin america, they know we are the gateway to latin america so it's never one thing. i have been in business all my life. it's never one thing. it's a whole bunch of things put together. >> right. want to talk a little bit about
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2016. you are in a unique position the governor of florida. likely to run? senator from flat likely to get in the race? >> mike huckabee. >> yeah. >> everybody is making a good decision. >> both there. obviously too close to rick perry as you mentioned, close to bobby jindal. what are you looking for in a 2016 candidate? >> i think the biggest issue we have as a country is the same in florida, all about jobs. we can't have a country that has higher corporate taxes more regulation and get jobs. if you are -- all of these companies are competing globally. think about it. we don't -- and we don't care where they are headquartered. we have to elect somebody that says, my primary job is jobs. we are going to figure out how to limit the growth of government.
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they have to figure out how to cut corporate taxes, cut individual taxes, reduce regulations. we can't have more and more and more onnerous regulations on our companies. take something as simple as obamacare and what we have done to our companies. you buy produce. you could buy florida or mexican produce. by the way, you should by by federal law you are supposed to know what you are buying. i am sure all of you do that all the time. but they are not having to comply with obamacare in mexico. so you think their prices are going to be cheaper than ours? where are the jobs doing going to be? i want those jobs in the united states, in my case i want florida. we have to have a president that says we've got to figure out how to compete globally. if you've ever built -- i built a company from scratch from me and the secretary to 285,000 employees. what you are trying to do all the time is keep your costs as low as possible because you are always competing on costs. everybody is compete can on
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costs. it's the same thing as our federal government and state government. i am going everything i can to may make florida government as efficient and effective as possible. we have the lowest taxes per capita in the united states the most number of state workers right now in the united states right now. our federal government has to do the same thing when we are competing against other countries because we are competing. you know, the jobs are going to go to other companies. i have daughters i now -- i have a 3-year-old grandson. i want them to live in the united states florida. one unfortunately lives in texas which governor perry reminds me of all the time. we are competing. we have to have a president that the has to fight this war on ter error. our citizens are getting beheaded. citizens around the world are being killed murdered. we have to show up. we have to show up and fight terrorism p and then we have got to got promote our country.
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it's like i lived in texas for a while. the second day you live there, you start bragging about the state. that's what i am trying to get everybody in florida to do. we have to brag about our country and says, our country no ifs, ands or buts about it, we are the most exceptional place in the world to live. that's what i am looking for in a candidate. as you know there are lots of people running. >> do you think you will endorse? >> our primary, you know, should be next year in march. right? next month. so most likely but i will worry about it down the road. >> in the legislature, it would be march 15th. florida could be winner take all. do you think that will happen? >> like everything else the legislature does they will deal with it when they good it. >> what's your relationship like with jeb bush? how often do you talk to him? do you guys exchange ideas about what you are doing? >> yeah.
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i was asked yesterday about that. here is what happens. i have known governor bush. i knew his brother better but i have known governor bush. so we talk more about education because that's what his big focus has been but the reality is, he talks to people who are having issues at the same time. so rick perry, chris cristix bobby jindal probably the two is rick and bobby. you know the southern states have similar issues and most of the issues most of our issues are caused by a federal government that is try to be dictate how we spend our money. i mean it's no different than when i first came in high-speed rail project. they wanted me to spend our money. a $4 billion budget. on the a project they want done and not that i ask for. >> marco rubio was in tallahassee but before you? >> yes. >> you both were elected in 2010 to your jobs do you have a relationship with rubio?
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do you talk to him? >> he has done a good job. he's been a goodpe on when we have federal issues. he has been a good partner. >> this week, there has been a push to get him to stay in the senate, saying all of the people in the presidential field t it's his decision but do you think you should stay in the senate? >> i think if he wants to be president f no one is going to an out you. right? if he wants to be president, it's going to have to run. but i think anybody from florida running for president is good for florida because they are going to talk about how great we are doing. so, i am trying to get everybody in our state to brag. if we can get, you know, those two to brag about our state, that's a good start. >> are you still talking to perry even though he is no longer governor? >> i talk to him. i talked to him the other day. he is fine. rick is a ball to be with.
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you know he's got a lot of energy. he was out in florida. >> you mentioned education in reference to governor bush. you obviously have done a lot on education. this week, you talked about scaling back testing. there is too many tests. you are looking at some executive orders to reduce the number of tests kids have to take but legislative fixes. talk about this problem and your solution. >> so our state has done really well. when i recruit companies, they care about taxes. they care about regulation. they care about permitting. they care about workforce but they also care about the education for the kids there are workers. for the first time i called ol them, they asked me about education. here is where we are: our 4th graders are number 2 in the world in reading. our fourth and eighth graders
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have the largest of any state in the country last three years. we are i think, the only state that has had student achievement gap narrow between african-american and caucasian students. low income students had the hiett gains last year. teacher equality to do a survey every two years, number 1 for teacher quality two times in a row. we have a lot to brag about in education, but one thing while we believe in measurements, what we have done is we have put in a lot of tests. the way florida is set up is a little bit different than some states. we have districts by county. in some states lots of school districts, we have 67. so we have state-mandated tests and district mandated tests. last year as we were hearing about this too much testing i asked for a test investigation so we would put out what was going on every different.
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if you go talk to teachers i do a lot of round tables with teachers, they say the state government is mandating it. no, your district is mandating that. so we are going to get rid of some of our testing. we are going to focus on results which is what parents and students and teachers care about but some of the test we will get rid of some of the things that are redundant. some at the state level. some at the district level. our state is doing well in education. also in our universities we have performance funding for universities tied basically to three things. going to school, you say what's it going to cost me. so, i get a job. do i make more money? and that's what we are measuring. this year, we will have about $460 million in performance funding for our universities and state colleges. >> you support common core but you got permission and you got the state passed with the florida standards f bill has
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been here and said they get scapegoated, sex ed everything is about common core. can you talk about your thoughts on common core? there are some underlying good things. >> alternates of common core are florida standards. so what we want is we said we are going to use our -- we are going to go -- use florida standards. we are picking and choosing what we like. we are continuing to make changes in bwhat we have but we are going to have our own standards. also, a year ago we said we passed legislation that said the federal government is not going to data mine our students. the curriculum depositions will be made at at district level. so we have elected school board members in our counties and so at the local level, they can make the decisions. we are going to continue to have high standards and we are going to continue to try to outcome
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pete every other place in the world because we are competing with the whole world for jobs. so we are doing that but we are using our own standards. i want to switch to healthcare medicaid. after the 2012 election you have been endorsing the idea of medicaid expansion, didn't go anywhere in the legislature. you are here in washington for meetings this weekend. i presume the white house administration will pressure you. >> the white house, president wholetary table will be full of people trying to get me to do something the federal government wants me to do. that's the way it works. >> what do they want from you? >> right now i think, it's the biggest one. they have given up on high-speed rail. >> here is where we were in our state when i got elected. medicaid in our state had been growing at three times general revenues for something like 20 years, and so it was just -- it was not a small part of our budget.
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$20 million. three times the general revenue, that's pretty tough. so we passed legislation my first year and got approved by the federal government my second year that said our medicaid program would be -- a private company would be responsible by area of the state for those recipients. responsible for their quality, their access and protecters, responsible for cost. we have a medicaid program we can afford and one that our recipients know they are going to get good care. when two years ago, no different than what my position on high-speed rail. when they wanted to do high speed rail between orlando and tampa, i said as long as you want to pay all of the money, do it but don't come and tell me how to spend my money because i am responsible for the taxpayers of the state of florida. if you want to spend federal money, spend federal money. the same with regard to medicaid. as long as the federal government wants to do something, they should do what
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they want to do but don't ask me to take it out of my budget for a program that you want to have happen. so, that's not happened in our state. i don't know if it's going to happen in our state. we will see. >> people could send questions to at politico events. we have to get some audience questions on med educate kade. >> a block grant. if you give us a block grant, by the way, our taxes pay for it. taxpayers in our state are paying for this just like in every other state. so just let us give us our money back and we will run the medicaid program because we would like to take care of our citizenship, you know. we care about our citizens probably as much as anybody else does. >> the most substantive criticism of med cased expansion it's not going to be good for the money even if they are good for the first three years. >> a trillion dollar deficit, would you do business with them? a long term contract with them? >> that's a legitimate concern a lot of conservatives do have. expand coverage. you expand coverage. >> you think they will change
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the rules? >> you think they wouldn't when i got elected, what was happening is the fed recall government pro provide a grant to one of our agencies. it would be a two or three-year grant and it would go away. everybody would say aren't you going to keep it? i didn't start it. so we stopped our agencies from doing that without talking to the government ors. why would we do that to our citizenship, get people hooked on something they didn't ask for. tingle a lot of people in the state i travel pretty much every day. no one asked me for more government programs p make some people who will make money off of it do but it's like medicaid expansion, it's the most active in the hospital. we have a microphone. shocking indeed. we have a microphone for audience questions, and i want to take some if there are any while someone if there are any
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hands. >> should we move to florida? i got receiptors' names. i've got everything. by the way did y'all see that i ithaca new york put on their tourist website that their weather was so bad everybody should just go to florida? >> my wife would love that with this temperature. i won't tell her this offer. >> in a '14 cycle, you talked about education a little bit and you won. i mean you were attacked on education reform? >> everything. yes pick the easiest state. i could have moved to a state that the would have been easier but i didn't. >> do you have lessons that other folks, other governors could take from what you did in florida even though it's a fairly red state, especially in a presidential year they could take from your message and how
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you prevailed? >> we went after everybody. we've got a significant hispanic population. so i am not -- my spanish is not perfect, but i practice spanish every day. [speaking spanish" i do spanish radio. i do spanish t.v. we put a lot of effort into the hispanic market. i i personally believe everybody should vote for what we are doing. i don't talk to any family who says i don't care about jobs or education or public safety. so, we went out and we did event did all over the state. we talked to everybody we could. we did well with especially the hispanic vote. but we just went and talked to everybody. we did a lot of event did. i mean i was unfortunate i had a wife who was willing also to travel. so she did events every day around the state.
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this was a person when i won four years ago said, that's great. i am glad you won. remember you agreed i would never have to give a speech? so, we worked it every day and got our message. we didn't have 15 messages. we talked about jobs and education and public safety. when we got done with that it was jobs education and public safety and more about jobs education and public safety. >> is that the key for republicans nationally, too? the i am graiks is a thorny one you can't not talk about at all. but how do republicans nationally extrapolate from the your success? >> i mean everyone cares about the same thing. everybody does. people come to our country. what did they come here for? the dream. the dream that we all believe in. that's why they are here. so, i just went and talked to them about, you know, how we are going to do. we are going to do everything i
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can to give them the same opportunity everybody else has. s i think your state is the best melting pot in the country, maybe in the world. 300 languages in our state. people all over the world living in florida. we have especially if you look at especially the or lando area we've got a lot of -- and tampa would be second. a lot of port ricans. but broward and miami dade, a lot of people from central america, and this is -- they feel connected with our state we are a melting pot. we like all of the cult newer our state. i think the biggest thing we have to do is go talk about what people care about. they care about jobs. that's the biggest thing. they care about jobs. everybody wants this economy to turn around. i think the -- what we've got to do we've got to tell our story about why our belief helped everybody, which i believe they
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do. i think i am a republican. my job is to take care of families like my growing up struggles to keep food on the table, struggle to pay rent or mortgage. that's who i take care of. if those individuals do well everybody does well. if they can get a job there is less government need. there is more public safety. everything is get better for everybody. >> you mentioned the hispanic vote. i want to take more questions in a minute. the cuba has been in the news a lot recently because of president obama's move. nancy pelosi is there during the congressional recess. you opposed relaxing the embargo. breaches frustrate to go see democrats travel to go cuba. >> the other companies who don't have trade sanctions. they still are there the castro
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brothers are killing peaceful protesters. so, the only way we are going to get democracy in my belief -- and i listen to the ladies who live in cuba and say the only way is to keep the trade sanctions. so, i am -- if i was going to do a trade medication went to 10 countries, brazil, there is probably business there. colombia business panama spain, england, canada japan, france. do air shows. that's where we are getting jobs. pennsylvania. >> there are a lot of republicans saying let's get rid of the embargo. it didn't work. do you think that they don't understand? why do you think that there has been this shift in public opinion about the embargo? nationally and in florida. >> i am not much of a pundit.
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i know what i believe. but i don't know why somebody would thing that. >> do you think a republican would win in florida not supporting the embargo in 2016? >> i don't know. i think the biggest issue in our state is who is going to focus on jobs? i think the -- what i am looking for, which i think most people are looking for get our economy going. let's defend our country from terrorism. let's, you know, fix obamacare. let's have somebody that brags about our country. we have an exceptional country. let's don't elect somebody who is going to apologize. >> we have a question. good good. >> good morning, governor. you talked about performance punldit for your state colleges and universities. you also spearheaded a 10,000 dollar bachelor's degree in the state of florida can you talk
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about the next us of higher education and economic development development, particularly having the access or the access for students in your state to obtain and unpgrade their skills? >> i am probably older than most people in this room. when i went to senior college, i think it was $200 a semester or year. university was expensive. for 15 hours, take 21 hours if you want. it was 255. no fees. books weren't very expensive. if you want to give people a shot at the dream of america, make it more aufrd alan. why does it have to cost as much? if you think about in business, your expectation things can get cheaper. okay? the value gets better. how does that happen with education? so the -- i challenged all of
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our state colleges. we have 28 state colleges. 23 have four year degrees. i said can you do a degree for $10,000? they all did it, all of the ones that had four year degrees. we will expand that all in areas where there is jobs. this year we will expand that for four years, $10,000. this year we are going to expand it to get more stem degrees there at our universities. they were raising tuition when i kale in at 15 plus % a year. 15 plus per a year. now, if you have lots of money, then that's okay. if you are not, you don't have a lot of money, somebody willing to pay for it or don't want to go borrow, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, then how do you pay for it? finally, my third year, my fourth year, we got that stopped. and so what that allowed that to do was the cost of a pre-paid plan four years before i became governor, buy a pre-played plan for a university for a newborn,
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$100 a month or 14,000 up front. when i got it stoppedtiously it was 54,000 up front or 350 a month. now, think about you have two kids. how many people are going to spend 700 bucks a month after tax? you can't do it. so now who is it hurting? it's hurting the core family. we want our kids to get degrees. the other thing we did was we said -- we said, we want them to get degrees in areas where there is jobs. there is a lot of jobs in our state. 279 job openings a lot in the stem area. all of these aviation aerospace and these states that need stem graduates. my third year in office we started the performance funding, about 20 million. this last year was 200 million. this year will be 460, basically tied to three things, really, three things. what's it cost for a degree? when you think about that i care about degrees.
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so part of it is tuition. part of it is how fast you get through. it makes people start thinking about, you know, think about when you were going to school. remember how hard it was to get the classes you needed? yeah. ideal should -- you are the customer. retail business like that did that to you, you would stop going there. then we are trying to also get textbook costs down. i talked to somebody the other day that one textbook cost $500 for a freshman class. $500. that's crazy. so, we are focused on tuition but we are focused on what does it cost to get a degree? do you get a job? i asked our universities, i said when i came in give me all of the surf vades you do of employers so i am sure unwhere all of the jobs are. do you know how many i got back? zero. zero. now, in business you are doing customer surveys all the darn time. so, it's already changed the
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conversation now they are thinking about how to get people through here faster. where are the jobs? how much are people going to make? it's changed the conversation. that's good for everybody in our state. >> we are wrapping up here. i wanted to ask one last question. jeb bush used to talk about hairy, audacious goals, this kind of tab low ahead of youleau ahead of you. what are your big, hairy goals for the second term? >> the biggest i have is by the time i get out of office we will become the number 1 place in the world to get a job. if we are the number 1 place in the world to get a job, here is what happens -- it's already happened in what we have done so far, record funding for k 12 education, record funding for universities, record funding for state colleges record funding for transportation. so we have -- and we continue we have the lowest taxes per capital in the country. so, it's all tied to making our state a place where people say, if i am going to build a
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business i am going to build it in florida before i think about any place else because i know that i can compete globally better in florida than any place in the world. that's my goal. the end of the eight years and when i finish when i finish, that's what people are going to say: florida is the absolutely best place to get a job in the world. >> governor rick scott, thank you so much for being here. really appreciate it. thanks a lot [applause.] >> thank you, susan. i am peter ginellis the executive editor of politico. thank you for joining us. thrilled to be joined by jean from rhode island. thank you for joining us for the afternoon session. >> thank you. >> let's get started.
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you are one of a dwindling number of democratic governors and even rarer bird in your first term as a democratic governor but you ran opinion a reform platform that actually, you know alienated some traditional constituencies. is that a recipe that more democrats should be following at the state level to try to get the number of democratic governors up? >> i don't know if that's the recipe. the recipe the theme of my campaign, and i think the reason that i won is that i was relentlessly focused on economic development and job creation and i think, you know, every advertisement that my campaign did was focused on that. and that was the bet that we made but work i did done around
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pension reform, that made it difficult in the primary. what i said was look, it's time for government to take the courage to take on the tough issues and get things done. i think i was able to convince people that i would take that same courage that i used to get through the pension to fixing an ailing economy. >> there is a tension in the democrat community. there are a large number of democrats that are reform democrats that feel as though teacher tenure and, you know, charter schools and other -- education innovations are really necessary. there is another group that tends to support the union position which is a lot of this is teacher bashing and all. is that something democrats are going to have to make a choice about going forward? not just with teachers' unions but with some of the very powerful public sector unions? >> democrats and all public servants need to be willing to be honest about the reality. you know if we have schools
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that aren't working and aren't educating our skids well and the results aren't what they need to be we need to face the facts and fix them. if that means making changes that teachers' unions are uncomfortable with i think democrats have to have the courage to do that. unfortunately, all of this stuff quickly gets into an us versus them which i don't find to be productive. i think we ought to treat teachers like professionals that they are, give them the support they need and hold them accountable. every teacher i know -- i have two kids in public school. every teacher i know wants to be held accountable. every teacher i know wants to be treated like a professional. as a mom, i want my kids to be well-educated. >> i reviewed a powerpoint presentation that you had presented to a large number of rhode island leaders about the rather daunting task ahead for the next four years growing budget gap projected over the next four years combined with a
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stagnating economy, 47th in unemployment among the 50 states, lack of investment in job creation. the conclusion is obviously you have to invest more in job creation. how are you going to do that with a budget gap? >> that's the challenge. you ask the question. i tell people that i really have to thread the needle on this. i am facing a hooling budget deficit, rhode island, for those of you to give you a sense of what we are dealing with rhode island has one of the weakest economies in the nation, which it might be a surprise to you because we are nestled between new york and boston. we have great amazing universities. we ought to be a thriving economy, but we are not. we were crushed when the manufacturing sector left. we didn't reposition ourselves for high-growth industries. so, i am in the position where the insfifrning would be to cut and there have to be cuts except
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you can't just cut. you can't cut your way to prosperity or job creation. we have to cut in the areas where we spend too much or that aren't job creating and then reality of that money -- rea allocate that to skill development, economic incentives for businesses and that is exactly the task before me. those are tough choices. i will have to take a hard look at medicaid. rhode island the second highest in the country per enrollee. not doing a great job necessarily faketaking care of the most vulnerable. we have to find money there and invest in the roads and bridges and schools, skill development to fundamentally get people back to work earlier, the earlier schedule, we are going to be joined by governor nixon of missouri under a talking to his
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staff. it is the return for american manufacturing. they are sinced missouri is going to be a big beneficiary of that. no so many manufacturing jobs have been lost in rhode island is that realistic? could rhode island benefit or is it smart tory go with something like boston and new york tend to be going and take advantage? >> i think you have to do both. what we have to do like every state, we have to figure out what we can be really good at and manufacturing is a piece of that, manufacturing of today is the knowledge economy. it's not my dad's manufacturing. my dad once upon a time rhode island was the mecca of jewelry manufacturing. s.p. ed. l, tiffany. that's what we did made beautiful jewelry and watches. that's all gone.
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my dad worked forever at the bulova watch factory. >> fact o went away. the jobs went away. >> manufacturing is gone forever. new manufacturing, high-skill, high-tech, knowledge based manufacturing if you will is coming back and rhode island a absolutely poised to get it's fair share of that manufacturing in areas of excellence like marine technology. you know, i believe, rhode island ought to be the boat building calpitol of the world. newport, bristol. we need to go where we are going to be great and build upon our strength and build advanced manufacturing. >> one of your critiques in the powerpoint presentation was that there wasn't enough flexibility in rhode island to attract businesses. that's controversial there are a lot who think you give away the
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store to build something in massachusetts and move it to warrick and that looks like a big success for the govern of rhode island but it's a zero sum game that is hurting all of those neighboring states. do you think that could work though? >> i do. you know, it's a balance. what i said in the campaign and this is the core difference between me and my republican opponent: often the republican playbook is cut taxes as low as possible and all good things will happen. i don't agree with that. you have to have low enough tax so businesses wants to be there. i used to run a business that i made my career for over adon dozen years. transparent government and reasonable tax and invest in your workers. you have to have high-skilled workers. in rhode island i would like us to raise the minimum wage. i want to have, you know excellent training programs. so businesses here is the
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thing: give you bad news. rhode island and america, we can't compete on price anymore. if a company wants the lowest cost labor, they, they are going to to, to china i don't want to be the lowest price. i want to compete. we have to be low cost enough to be competitive, including with taxes and provide incentives but at the end of the day, we have to compete on quality, which is skill and know how and that's, you know, takes some investment. >> mainly education, you are thinking of? >> absolutely. mainly education, innovation research and development. you know if you look at the economies in america that are really humming including message who, where, you know, i know you are from. their number of patent per capital is through the roof. they are competing on quality. companies want to be there because they are centers of innovation research and development and new ideas.
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i need to position rhode island in there. >> what is your theory on sort of what went wrong? you are mentioning massachusetts. the traditional idea is massachusetts benefits because it has universities there and boston add a place that snow is six feet high, a high quality of life and people generally like to be there. they emphasize the historical. there is an attractivenets but it's the same attractiveness that providence and newport have and you have brown university of providence college, university of rhode island. a large number of colleges and universities. what went wrong in rhode island? how did it not benefit from the same forces that helped massachusetts and new york? >> so, you know i will tell you my theory. massachusetts has done a great job of partnering and collaborating. government can't do everything. government cannot make an economy work. it has to be can collaboration
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and bottoms up. great things happen with universities working with government, working with business. andmas massachusetts and pittsburgh and other places that have had a renaissance have nailed that. rhode island hasn't. we haven't brought to be -- we have brown university rhode island school of design but we haven't married them with industry. we haven't turned those great ideas into commerce. the other thing candidly is as a state, we were just too rely and for too long on manufacturing so everyone knows, rhode island was hurt more than almost any state in the country, more than michigan in the number of manufacturing jobs we lost. we were very dependent on manufacturing 10 years ago. so we waited too long to reposition ourselves. my dad he always had a simple way of describing things, and he said, gina, i could see it when
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i was working in the jewelry shop, all of the jewelry shops were going away. in massachusetts, they got into computers. that was his way of saying they got in to it. they tapped in to mit and harvard and turned those into businesses. rhode island stood still. it's my job now as a new governor to shake it up and move. we have to move. we can't stay still any more because we are getting passed by. >> is the difference between massachusetts and new york and rhode island also something about the political cut culture there? is is there a more cohesive culture? >> i think so. i think culture has a lot to do with it. rhode island for a long time has been parochial, inward thinking inward looking and we need to be a little bit more outward-facing and embracing of new people and dmoouf ideas and innovation you know. i amherrantly, if you are inward looking, you are not innovative and we need to be more collaborative and we need to move faster. it's not acceptable.
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it drives me crazy when i hear from people: it took me a year and a half to get a permit or it tookmy 3 years to get a permanent in massachusetts. i was online for 45 minutes waiting on hold to get my unemployment insurance that's not okay. that isn't okay. i have to fix that the basics of government needs to work. we are going to get after that. >> there has been a lot of attention top congressional inaction on a range of issues including transportation, most prominently. a lot of things that helped the state have been slowed down become subjects of dispute here in washington. what do you want out of the federal government to help rhode island? >> i want them to show up and get things done, you know sometimes it feels like the federal government has left the building and nothing had as happening. figure out a way to fund the infrastructure. pensions when pi say pensions
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i say don't talk to me about management versus labor, us versus them. we have a problem, people. let's get to work. let's be practical and fix the problem. our infrastructure is falling apart. the we have the money as a nation to fix it. there is no question we have the money. there is no question lack of infrastructure is holding us back. travel to europe and asia. they are ahead of us. we have the money to do it. get to work. fix your problems. have you talked to folks in washington about that i am aggressive and vocal. i have a state that's 48th in job growth. i need to get everyone to do everything i can. i talk to our delegation. we are on the minority. they are working hard don't sit on the sidelines, care about your next election. do what's right. >> great.
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people might have questions for the governor. come forward. mic over there? >> i guess somebody has to break the ice, i should say. govern governor, how can we address the increased costs of medicaid without decreasing eligibility or decreasing benefits? the same time deal well populations accessing care generally in the wrong location at the wrong time? >> yes. thank you. i think the -- what you said at the end is the answer. you know we just because we are spending a lot of money doesn't mean we are doing a good job there are, you know, many people who are in nursing homes long-term care who could be at
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home and frankly would rather be at home if they have the proper wrap-around services so that they could be at home. which would mean better care and safe enormous amounts of money. the rowalty is in medicaid a small number of very complex patients consume the lion's share of the money. so we need to do a better job of managing those patients. these are patience that have many different kinds of medical issues. if you let them keep running through the system, showing up getting readmitted. infections back in the hospital back in the nursing home have a fall before you know it, they cost two-thirds of what we spend is on a 10th of the population. let's identify those people and manage them properly so they get better care and we bring costs down. that's going to be the way i approach it because i will tell
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you this: if you just go after it and say we are going to cut eligibility, remember going to cut rates, go 4 to go hurt people. pie son gets a lot of ear infections. thank god, we have great healthcare so i am able to zip him right to the doctor get him on his meds right away. i am at work by 9:00 o'clock lifer is good and he is taken care of cutting he will thegibilitity is mean and doesn't save money. if my kid wound up in the er, it would be more expensive. that's how i think about it. other questions? >> i am a resident from lincoln rhode island. i moved to village.
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>> move back. come back. >> i was also finance director in a coastal community in rhode island it's the level -- i hate to use the word corruption but it's pervasive because the smallness of the state. no deal was too small. everyone wanted to get connected and once they are connected they think they have an inroad the other issue is the most powerful person in the state is the speaker of the house. some of those issues if you could expound on. >> it's funny. tell me your name. >> rob. >> it's funny, rob i had no power as treasurer. the power i got was derived from the peep.
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dallas the -- that's the power the governor has to make the case to the people. that's what i am going to do tell the people of rhode island what i think is best for them and for me and for a whole state and our kids and i am going to invite them to get engaged because what happened in rhode island is the governor proposes a budget and then the general assembly takes the bucket lobbyists hack it up and out pops a bucket. that's bad for everybody as far as i can tell. >> my job is to shine a light on the process and smabling make sure the voice of the people is in that room and better that the hearings take place in public in the day and give everybody an opportunity the truth is at pension reform, the
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reason that happened is the average member of the general assembly was more afraid of their regular constituents than they were of the special interests and the lobbyists and they did the right thing for all of the people. so that's what i need to do. and that's what any leader needs to do. that's what any executive needs to do. that's what the president needs to do. you can't force your ideas on people. you have to make the case to the people and fire them up enough to get behind what you are trying to do. >> one thing that occurs to me we will get other questions, too, various points but the issue of regionalization within new england. a lot of what you are talking being is rhode island what massachusetts did right and rhode island may no have done right. states up in the northeast don't do a great job except on a few discrete issues of collaborating with each other. put them together and they are as big as text as.
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but individually they have very, very different cultures and things. i heard you attended charlie baker's inauguration in boston which was a gesture of kind of a statement, i guess, that the two states aren't competing. they have common interests. whether or not could help all of the states? >> i did attend governor baker's inauguration. he is a republican and i am a democrat. that was an important symbol i suppose we want to work together. the particular thing i would like to work with him on is energy. energy policy. energy is clearly a regional issue. it's a regional challenge, you know no one state can solve that on their own. so that's a specific issue i am working -- want to work with him
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on to see if we can come up with a regional strategy stoin the long run move to renewables and in the short run see if there is a natural gas opportunity to increase supply to bring down prices. you talk about manufacturing. manufacturers consume a lot of energy. even if i create great skilled programs, which we will do and manufacturers next in r and d if our energy costs are 25% higher than in other regions, that's a hard thing to overcome. >> how would you manage the transition to renewables? there are a lot of benefits for northeastern states to moving to renewables including creating an industry there that can, you know, build wind farms and things like that. but it's still much more expensive, especially than natural gas. yes. >> it's not going to help the manufacturing cause to be converting to renewables.
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how would you manage that? >> it's true. my own view is i am a proponent of natural gas as a bridge to renewables because we need energy pricing relief right now. as a practical matter at least where we live, it's the only option. in fact, most consumers on read island, that's what we use is natural gas. i know charlie agrees with me on this and so the kwhal eng is the pipeline has to go through massachusetts to come to rhode island which is why i need to collaborate with him. so my it's in his best interest as well. so, the consumers of massachusetts. the first thing is in the short-term, work on the natural gas to increase the supply which brings down costs while over time you get to renewables. >> we have a couple of twitter questions i can go through here one is how does the governor plan top implement the common core? >> i am a supporter of the
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common core. i think we need to stay strong and stick with it. i am of the view that most of the folks who don't like the common corks it's for a political reason. not a substantive reason. i think we are letting our kids down if we lower our standards. the world is not lowering its standards. when companies wants to hire people, they are not lowering their standards. they are hiring people who have the skills an the brutal reality is that education is still great equal lieser the reasonable where i am. the reason in my family we kind of my grandpa started as a cook's helper and now i wound up at harvard with a successful career. i think we need to move to the common core, set aggressive targets and keep standards high. the way that teachers teach to achieve the common core i think there should be flexibility. you know, i think there should be great flexibility so teachers can figure out how to get to those standards.
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i don't think we should lower our standards. >> hillary collinlinton campaigned with you. your company is comfortable that she could be the nominee in 2016. is there a difference in you are the first woman governor of rhode island, being a woman leader? and what is that difference? if you were making the indicates for why we need a woman as president right now, what is the value added for the whole country? >> for everybody? i do support hillary clinton. i hope she runs, and if she does, i will support her because i think she is a person of action and i think she needs hoe to get things done and is willing to do the right thing. that's primarily what we need. having said that i think it's time for a woman president. i do i think we were overdue for our first governor in rhode island. every single day i hear from a
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little girl who thinks it's the greatest thing ever we have a woman governor. it's this powerful unspoke symbol of you can be whatever you want to be if you work hard enough. you don't have to be a man to be in the top job did. so having women in positions of authority makes a difference. it's greatly empowering for other women and, also young girls. i also think it's a good thing to have a mom as a chief executive. you agree with me. we recently haul a blizzard in rhode island. and we got through. the things they don't teach you in governor school. i immediately called for a travel ban because i wanted people to be safe and i took to the air waves and said i want
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everybody to stay home. my kids said they are like mom, you had that like serious mom voice. that's why everybody listened to you. i was the first governor who talked about the safety of the guides drying the plows. we bring our own perspectives in the. i bring a different perspective as a woman and as a mom. >> do you think that as -- you are also an economist. i mean is there an actual economic benefit to inspiring girls to reach higher? >> absolutely. i think at a time most under utilized thing we have is women and girls. 50% of the talent pool and the creativity that is under
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represented can with can it's not a woman's issue to get women and girls into society and technology and business government. it's a societal issue. if we could totally empower half of the brains in america, imagine how much better and more productive we would be. >> you think a woman president could do that better than a male president? >> i do. i think as a person, i think a pen who is committed to making that happen will get that done. but on balance, i think it is powerful that you can't under estimate the value of a role model. >> all right. governor thank you very much. we have run out of time. it's time to wrap up [applause.] >> next i would like to welcome back politico's editor susan glaser for our last conversation. thank you. thank you all [applause.]
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>> you must have wowed them so. >> they are could youer cowerd by the cold. many thanks good. we are saying this is the 5th annual version of these conferences that microsoft has sponsored. we had republicans this morning and democratic governors are a vanishing species. how many have you had today? >> you are the fourth.
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we had some. >> i think it's a great starting point for our conversation. perhaps more than anyone else, you know, in our ranks, you straddle national politics, but you don't have your dnc hat on anymore. you are a governor does it look different to you? as governor so we have 34i89 assets, the largest naval base in the world. the pentagon it impacts us greatly. virg lost $98,000,000,000. sequestration is a real calamity for our economy. i hope it doesn't happen. i just left the pentagon i was at the
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Massachusetts Health Connector / termination without warning/not following through on files and procedures
I have been utilizing MA health connector since Aug. 2018. They received all of my eligibility requirements (proof of residence, etc.) no problem. Once open enrollment came up, they asked for all of this information again. I faxed over proof, and heard nothing about it since. I assumed everything was fine, and I came up as covered under my health insurance on the portal. Out of nowhere, Feb. 2019, I received a letter stating that I had been terminated for my insurance due to not getting proper proof. I spoke to customer care over and over to finally be assured they had received my proof and would be restarting my insurance. I received another letter in April 2019 stating they were terminating my insurance for no reason. I spoke to the customer care and they assured me this was not a letter they had filed on their end, despite it being in my notifications on the portal, and that I would be ok. I tried to make a doctors apt today and when entering my insurance information, they expressed that it was inactive. I contacted Tufts and they too said it was inactive. I contacted MA health connector who said it was active, and they will send confirmation over to tufts. In the meanwhile, in order to be seen, I will need to pay out of pocket and keep receipts to be reimbursed. I am extremely frustrated with the MA Health Connector, as they appear completely disorganized and have found it impossible to get consistent information. I hate that I have to get insurance through them, and that they are the only option. I want an organized, clear and concise way of obtaining health insurance. Not with all of these run arounds, and they finding out that I'm not even covered when I have been paying all year!!! I don't know where to go from here. I'd love support in finding out what to do next.
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- Massachusetts Health Connector - unable to make automatic payment because "another active aplication"

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