Who's gonna win Bedlam on Saturday. We found ourselves a running back of that.
But I'm a little more neutral now so but ever sooner everybody that's gonna
be gonna be a great game, and probably the last one. And in
a few years, man, I'm gonna do so many cool things. As
governor, I get to represent our state all over the country in Washington,
DC. And but Sarah and I we had no idea when I became governor
that was gonna make us a better parent. You see, we've got six
children, and our son just joined the army and we're so proud of and
we went to a swearing in ceremony. And so when you swear into the
army, you promise to obey the President of the United States, that defend
the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. And then here's my eighteen year
old son, because he's also joined in the Oaklahoma National Guard, with his
hand in the air. He promises to obey the commands of the governor of
the state or go So I have obviously been wearing him out with that one.
Go polish my boot, soldier, and go watch my trill. He's
been rolling his eyes as dad. But also I know they recognize some of
the representatives in here, but I just want to re recognize them and tell
you how much I enjoy working with your representatives. Here. You've got some
of the best in the entire state in the room. So we've got Representative
Little Pack in the House, true conservative, not from Bartlesville, but Claire
Moore. All right, we'll give my break, we'll welcome it to Bartlesville.
And then we've got Senator Daniels in the House. Does such a great
job representing representing Bartlesville. You guys are lucky to have her. And then
we've got represented Kine. Thank you so much for being here. Okay,
John came the fourth, right, Yes, his son I'm nicknamed you Sinko
is sinking with the house anywhere. He's the fifth. The John Kane family,
they're very original because John came the fifth. He named his son guess
what, John Kane the sixth. So no love the Kane family. They're
great. And then thank everybody. It's Judd and the House represents strong.
Okay, there we go, there we go, thank you. Well what
presenting. I just left Oklahoma City. We had a great press conference.
We were talking about I declared November Family Month. I don't know if anybody
saw it. I know you guys just wait around and watch these government press
conferences, but it was really important. We're just talking about families in Oklahoma,
and I want you to know that Oklahoma is the best place to live,
to work, to raise a family. We're now top ten and people
moving to Oklahoma. Yea, for the first time ever. I mean,
I'm a fourth generation Oklahoma. We've never had this type of momentum and had
people move into our state more than any other state. And so you know
what state we get most people from them, California. I'll get Californians in
here, Okay, Bartlesville. I guess it's good for the real estate business
and businesses, restaurants. But the first thing I tell these California people when
I meet them that come up to me at these events all over the state,
we just moved here, California Governor, can we get a picture?
And I said absolutely. But here's the deal. I had to wait eighteen
years to vote in Oklahoma. I'm going to make you wait eighteen years.
Okay, I'm just joking. If you're reporting, it's just a joke.
But they very quickly they're like, no, Governor, here's the deal.
We're moving here because of your pro family, pro business attitude. We saw
how you handled COVID. I was one of the few governors in the entire
country that refused to do a mask man date state wide. Yea, because
here's the deal. I don't believe that you put the Constitution in the attic
just because somebody in Washington, d C. Tells us to Okay. And
so we believe in freedoms in Oklahoma, and we believe in in capitalism.
We believe in equal opportes for everyone, and we want to set that stage
for our states. That's why businesses, we want to deregulate, get government
out of the way, and let you guys go thrive. But that all
starts with a strong, healthy workforce. And I just want to brag a
little bit on some of the things that we've got accomplished this past session.
And the biggest thing I believe is our school choice plan, and I want
to tell you about it. First off, we have put more money in
public education in the five years I've been governor. Then listen to this twenty
five years before I got here, all Right, if you add that up,
we get another six hundred and twenty five million to public education. Because
here's the deal. I believe that we all really want the same things.
And I remind people, let's let Washington, DC play politics. We're Oklahoma's
let's make Oklahoma the very best state. That's why you hear we talk about
top ten all the time. And when we boil it down to these four
things, we all want the best education for our kids right and want the
best opportunities for them. And I want to make sure they have the best
teach teachers, and that's when we gave our teachers a wonderful payroads last year.
And we want more school choice and more options and more schools. That's
a good thing we want just to finish that thought. We want the best
healthcare system, we want the best infrastructure roads and bridges, and we want
the best economy. And we can all agree on that, whether you're a
Republican or Democrat, or you live in rural or urban Oklahoma. So that's
what I'll remind our legislature. Let's just keep focusing on these four things and
everything else that can take care of itself. But education wise, we believe
in powering parents. We want to put parents in charge of their kids' education.
And here's where this kind of came from. During COVID, most schools,
I'm sure Bartlesville was open the whole time. Maybe they closed for a
week or two, but they were pretty much open. Most schools in our
states were. But Tulsa Public Schools was closed for three hundred and fifty five
days. He might remember that. I hammered them every day, all right,
like, hey, they're closed again. We got to open it up
because let me just tell you something. If any of you were governor and
you had to talk to the moms and dads and single parents that called your
office and they were like, Governor, this is not fair. My first
graders getting behind. They're not learning how to read on zoom. We don't
have a good internet, I have to go to work during the day,
I can't have a nanny, and my neighbors are all in school. So
we opened open transfer, so you can transfer now to any public school in
the state, regardless of your zip code. We also now passed a refundable
tax credit because so every single parent, everybody in this room has between five
thousand to seven thousand, five hundred dollars now to go to a school of
your choice. And that is amazing because school choice should not be just for
the rich. It should be for every single family. And we passed something
that now every other state around the country is starting to lookout, and we
think it's the best school plan in the entire country. The other thing,
when I think about school choice, I'm thinking about more options because I want
every kid. Our goal is to kid every kid college ready or career ready.
And what I mean by that is when they graduate from high school,
about fifty percent of the kids go on to higher ed. And we need
more engineers, and we need more doctors, and we don't need more lawyers,
but we but we also need more amp mechanics, and we need more
plumbers and electricians. And I tell young people when I talked to him,
I said, guys, have y'all have been a Grand Lake? And everybody's
like yeah, And I said, you know who's got the biggest boats on
Grand Lake. It's not the doctors or the lawyers. It's the plumbing contractors,
the roofing contractors, the electrical contractors. And so we set up this
special school in Norman, Oklahoma. I went to Norman High School, and
we were going to do it as a charter school, but Norman got so
excited about it that this part of Norman Public schools now and its aid two
year program that when you're a junior in high school, if you decided you
want a career in aviation, you want to be an AMP mechanic, or
you want to be a pilot, you could start going to this special high
school and by the time you graduate, you're an AMP mechanic. That is
amazing. Didn't that what education's about is aligning the education community with the workforce.
That's all we're trying to do. So American Airlines just right south of
here, right down the road, they've got five thousand employees. And you
know what the starting salary is for an AMP mechanic there. It's over seventy
thousand dollars a year. Okay. I went home and told my son,
I said, you can become an AMP mechanic. It's a great job.
And I asked the executives when they told me that, I said, how
many of y'all started on the shop floor as an AAP mechanic. About a
third of the room raised their hand. So that's not the end of Oklahoma
is the place to be. Oklahoma, the American dream is alive and well,
you can become an AAP mechanic. Then you can go back and get
your bachelors. We're trying to create these pathways. Then you can become CEO
of American Airlines right here from Oklahoma. And so we're excited about that,
saying love. Charter school. Santa Fe South is a charter school. I
love to brag on my dam. You've ever heard of it? That's in
South Oklahoma City. How many kids do you think go to Santa Fe South
charter School? Guess about four thousand, six hundred kids. Okay, I
had no idea before I became governor and started looking into this. But you
don't have to go to a charter school. You can go to the public
school. But six hundred parents are deciding this is a better opportunity for their
kids. Why would the government stand in the way. We want those parents
to have more options. Dove Science Academy focuses on stem They've got one in
Oklahoma City, one in Tulsa. So we're opening more schools, more charter
schools, more specialty schools like that. Aviation school in Norman, and I
just want to encourage the businesses in the room. If you have special needs
and you want to make sure that you've got a pipeline of employees, I
want you to work with the career techs, or work with the community colleges,
or work with your high school to start getting those kids ready for whatever
skills they need. Your employers. That's how this thing should work. And
I'm telling you we have to sometimes push the education community because there's probably some
educators I'm defending in here, but you have to sometimes push higher ed right
to start designing those programs. I'll give you a perfect example. When I
first got elected, the hospitals and they came to me and they said,
Governor, we need more nurses. I was like, no problem, I'm
the governor. I can help you with that. So I go meet with
I go meet with the Health Science Center at OU and I'm like, guys,
we need more nurses. How many of you guys training And they said,
well, we need two hundred and fifty this class. And I said,
okay, well they need more. I mean how many applications did you
get And they said, well, we got five hundred and fifty and I'm
like, well, why don't you accept them? And they're like, well,
Governor, you don't understand. There's something called faculty the student ratio,
because I'm just telling them to put some other desks in the classroom, right,
And they said, well, you don't understand. But in business,
have you ever noticed you have to ask about three quotquestions deep otherwise you get
spun in a circle. So I keep asking questions, I keep pressing,
I keep calling Texas A and M what's your student faculty ratio? And I
keep digging. My favorite press conference I've done as governor is about two years
ago with OU Health Science Center, Joe Harris, the president. We have
six hundred applicants the owe You nursing program and guess how many weeks at it?
Six hundred. That's exactly right. So every year now they text me
with all the different outlets, a huge deal. So you are the people
we have to get involved. Get involved those education communities, help them design
programs. I'm telling you they need that help from the business community. You
guys are the business community. You know what jobs are you need right here
in Bartlesville? Unless align that better because workforce it's all about workforce. And
workforce and education just go hand in hand. So I put Lieutenant Governor Matt
Panel. He's doing an amazing job. I assigned him as our Secretary of
Workforce to try to align this. We want to make sure we transform and
every kid is college readier, career ready. But the other thing I wanted
to share with you is a little bit of our philosophy on smaller government,
lower taxes. Who's for smaller government, lower taxes? Wow? O day,
We've got some good and the taxpayers in here. It sounds like good.
You know, here's the dealing. Our faith is in God, it's
not in the government. All right. You can't pass more laws in Oklahoma
City that are going to fix some of these issues. We need smaller government,
lower taxes. We need government. You have a way. That's why
I set up being a neighbor, because I believe our churches need to be
a neighbor and solve some of these social issues where government can't work. We
have to have people walking beside people. So I've asked, you've probably seen
it. I called the legislative back for a tax cut, because here's the
deal we have right now. The largest savings account in our state's history.
Did y'all know that five point four billion dollars? So we've got five point
four billion. Hear me on this, because sometimes people try to confuse the
citizens and say, well, Governor's DIDs trying to cut our taxes, and
then what are we gonna do? How are we gonna pay for services?
How are we gonna pay for four billion dollars? If you all heard that
saying you know governor's trying to I would never suggest that we cut revenue below
expenses, okay, but if we have extra revenue above expenses, I'm gonna
ask the citizens what should we do with that? So I'll give you an
example. If we spend ten billion and we bring in eleven billion, there's
a billion dollars extra. So we can do a couple of things with that
billion. We can either raise expenses okay, a billion dollars if we can
save the billion. Well, if I save the billion, you're gonna be
saying, Governor, how much savings do you need? You already got five
billion? Or we can give some of that back in a tax cup.
A quarter of a point tax cup is only eighty eight million the first year,
which is for half a year, and it's about two hundred and forty
million on a full year. Don't tell me how the how the countants did
all that. It doesn't make sense, but that's what they're helping. But
it's about two hundred and forty million for an actual year is all we need.
So what I'm saying is, when we have a billion dollar surplus,
let's continue the momentum as the most business friendly state. Let's give a quarter
of a point back, and over time we can step that down to zero
as we have as we have growth. Here's an example. We've been on
a path for zero for some time. We used to be your income tax
in tech in Oklahoma was at seven percent back in the early two thousands.
Did y'all know that? So we have been stepping that down and now we're
at four point seventy five. And if you look at revenue, our revenue
is going up. Every time we cut our revenue, the economy expands.
We continue this momentum. So that's that's basically what I'm asking the legislature to
do is just start. As we have access revenue, let's just do let's
give some of that back because only makes sense. The biggest challenge that I
see in the state of Oklahoma is the McGirt decision. And I don't know
if anybody's have you all has everybody heard of them? A gert decision at
this point? Okay? Well, the reason I think this is one of
the biggest challenges is whose land is it? What are we gonna do?
Who can prosecute the crimes? Do we all pay the same thing? Do
we all pay taxes? We're all Oklahomans, And I want to give you
an example, because taxes, whether it's property taxes, or it's sales tax
or its income tax, those are for public services. Right and so right
now there's a struggle. Case is before the state Supreme Court, not the
US Supreme Court, but our state Supreme Court. The miss struggle is an
Indian, Okay, I've got to always preface it. I'm an Indian.
Okay. We love our native heritage. Okay, I'm Cherokee. My grandparents
grew up in just South Washington County. They were dairy farmers. This great
part of our heritage. All six of my children are Cherokees. Okay.
So an Indian that lives in Tulsa, a regular fee, simple house in
a neighborhood in Tulsa is saying that she doesn't have to pay income tax.
All right, it's before the state Supreme Court. I think they're gonna do
the right thing. But let me give you that example. What if they
say that that she doesn't have to pay state income tax? So now you
have a case. Kevin Stid comes back to Tulsa after finishes being governor,
and I don't pay have to pay state income tax, but a single mom
of a different race does. That makes no sense. We all drive on
the same roads, we all go to the same schools. We need to
stand up and say this is nonsense. We're all Oklahoma's here. Okay,
So they're trying to federalize Bartlesville easier to Oklahoma Tulsa saying this is a reservation.
Let me explain a reservation different bid. I've talked to the governors in
other states that have reservations. Arizona is a great example. They have the
Navajo Reservation, all right. So the Navajo Reservation is truly land held in
reserve by that tribal government. It's a federal territory. Nine accent of the
people live there are all Navaja, all right, And It's true that a
Navajo person living on the Navajo Reservation doesn't pay taxes to the State of Arizona.
That's absolutely true. But what's also true, and hear me on this
is the state of Arizona. They don't build roads on the reservation. They
don't build schools or hospitals or airports. Their highway patrol doesn't patrol the reservation.
It's not the state of Arizona. That's not what we want. That's
why I keep saying, guys, we have one hundred and sixteen years of
history of Tulsa and Bartlesville. This is not a reservation. Okay, we
cannot apply the same rules to Tulsa and Bartlesville as we do to a true
reservation in Navaloe. That's what I am fighting. And you'll hear of Stiff
just hates the Indians. That's not true. I love Oklahoma. I am
not going down in history as the governor. That doesn't tell you the truth
of what I'm seeing happening to our state with all these different court battles that
are happening. So that's basically I believe what the biggest challenge is the opportunities
is are really coming I mean we, like I said before, we're top
ten of people moving here, and I'm excited about the opportunities. We have
to fix some of these jurisdictional problems, and i can talk about that for
a long time, but I'm gonna move on. Permitting reform is something I'm
pushing with President Biden. We are a great oiler gas state. I know,
We've got Phillips in here. We've got we're the pipeline capital of the
world in Cushing, Oklahoma. I just visited toured Cushing, this Plains Capital
Plains Company and planes. They have more storage oil storage there than any other
place in the nation. Okay, It's like a hundred million barrels of oil
is stored in Cushing, Oklahoma. It's unbelievable, largest commercial storage in the
country. Because of that, I've been pushing the Biden administration. I'm trying
to get a critical mineral storage for Oklahoma. So I'm trying to unplug from
the from the grip that the Chinese have on us. With critical minerals in
Oklahoma can be this place to be for critical mineral research. We just landed
us a rare earth, which is a mineral to magnet manufacturer, first one
in the western in the sphere, it's gonna be in still Water, and
then Bartlesville. You guys just landed Blue Whale, which is a It's gonna
be ninety jobs. It's a huge deal, and it's because of our regulatory
climate that they know they can get these new processes done. They're gonna be
taking batteries and extracting all those rare earth minerals out of those batteries, which
is something that you guys should be really proud of. If we create that
cluster for this new emerging industry, I think it's gonna be it's gonna be
big time jobs for us in the future. So as long as we stay
in business friendly, lower taxes, family focused, freedom loving, I believe
we're going to continue to grow as a state. So and Bartlesville is a
special special place. Every time I speak here, I remind Bartlesville because I
get to see everything in the state, you know, from guamand into all
seventy seven counties and I speak all over. I was just in a lot
in last week at their chamber event, and people ask me where it's cool
places around the state, and I always tell them there's something really really special
about Barblesville, the people, the culture that you guys have here, and
Phillips is a big, big part of that. We love Phillips here.
But thank you guys so much for having me and thank you guys for being
engaged in what's happening in Barblesville today in Oklahoma. So God bless you,
thanks for having me today