 Please welcome Governor Tom Wolfe. Thank you very much, John. It's great to be here and be here with all of you. And I appreciate the chance to talk a little bit about what I've done and what I'm going to do. Before I get started, I would just like to say thank you to the journalists who are here. There's a reason why the Bill of Rights starts with freedom of the press. You're that important to our democracy. And this is especially difficult time for the free press. With the changes in the way we're going to market, there are fewer and fewer people in the press. And the responsibility on their shoulders is necessarily heavier. But it's really important. We have right now, we're in the midst of an all-out assault on the free press, but I think also on just the idea of truth itself. Our own president is tarnishing the reputation of the press, I think, as part of a deliberate attempt to chip away at our democracy. And so that makes what you do as members of the press all that much more important than ever before. And I just want you to know that I really appreciate what you're doing. I may not always agree with you. I may not agree with you a lot. But I really value the role that all of you play in making sure our democracy survives. So thank you for the important work that you're doing, especially in a town like Harrisburg that needs real policing. Here in Harrisburg, there is a systemic problem. And I work to change every day. And I actually would echo John's comment. I really am relishing this opportunity. In the halls of the capitol, special interests have more influence than constituents. And protecting big money donors often comes before getting results. We saw just that in the past few months after repeated failure of the Republican House to finalize a budget deal and the refusal to pass a severance tax. As a result, House Republicans forced to credit downgrade that will cost all Pennsylvanians more. School districts, townships, cities, boroughs, counties, and the state are all going to pay more because you pay a higher interest rate on anything you borrow just to get more of the same. I'm tired of these games. I've been doing this for a little over two and a half years, and I'm frankly tired of this kind of nonsense. That's why I took decisive action to manage our state's finances just a few weeks ago. I did this to protect education. I did this to protect seniors, to those suffering from substance use disorder and jobs. I did this to create those good-paying jobs and attract businesses to the Commonwealth. I did this because I'm sick and tired of special interests in politicians, self-interest, and political games trumping the public interest here in Harrisburg. Just last week, the legislature finally and reluctantly funded last week, I guess last week and I just signed, funded the budget that they passed back on June 30th, over three months, almost four months ago. Well, this provides much needed funds to fix our deficit. The process shows that Harrisburg is actually really broken. I should not have had to draw a line in the sand in order to force House Republicans to do the job. They actually were elected to do. A complete budget, one where you actually pay for what you buy, complete budget shouldn't come months after both houses agreed on the spending bill, overwhelmingly. And Pennsylvanians shouldn't have to pay more because of a downgrade caused by inaction, ideology, and sheer indifference. This is not the way government should work. It's certainly not the way democracy should work. And that's why I'm going to continue to take on Harrisburg as I have done every day from the first day I took office. There's no greater example of Harrisburg's dysfunction than the House Republicans' refusal to vote on a severance tax. Last week, there was a scheduled vote on this tax. Big oil, gas companies, but House Republican leaders stopped it from happening once again. It's well past time to pass a tax on shale. We're still the only gas producing state that has not taken this common sense step. If you're from Texas, Wyoming, Alaska, Louisiana, they're all these states reaping billions of dollars from the success of their oil and gas industries because of smart decisions these states have made to use a portion, just a portion, of the proceeds of their natural resources for the public good. Pennsylvania is blowing by these states in terms of production, but has missed out on literally billions of dollars of revenue because special interests set the terms in Harrisburg. The Independent Fiscal Office has said that 80% of the revenue raised by a reasonable severance tax would be paid by customers not living in Pennsylvania by non-Pennsylvanians. So this shouldn't be a Republican or a Democratic issue. This is just an issue that makes sense. And that's why we really ought to have it. But we know that the people fighting against the severance tax have worked behind closed doors to shut down a vote. You can't even get a vote on a severance tax because they wanna see me fail rather than see Pennsylvania succeed. And this just is plain wrong. It's the quintessential example of what's wrong with Harrisburg. So I will continue to push for as long as I need to to make sure that Pennsylvania takes advantage of this resource, which belongs to the people of Pennsylvania. Make sure that the oil and gas industry pays its fair share for operating in our commonwealth. As you know, I'm not afraid of a fight, especially when it means standing on the side of Pennsylvanians to take on Harrisburg. Five years ago, a Republican governor and a Republican legislature cut nearly a billion dollars from public education. Teachers were laid off by the tens of thousands and schools were pushed to the brink of closing. I refused to stand by while our education system was being set up to fail. I knew that we had to change the way Harrisburg did business. So when I took office, the first thing I did was to stop trying to balance the budget on the backs of children. Now I knew people in Harrisburg were used to doing things a certain way. And of course the legislature was still overwhelmingly Republican. So I knew the politics of this wouldn't be easy. But changing Harrisburg so that it worked for the people of Pennsylvania was and still is a fight worth waging. Now we've made the largest investment in education in the history of Pennsylvania over the last two and a half now three years. We've undone the cuts of the past. We've passed a fair funding formula to take politics out of school funding once and for all. There's still more progress to come because after years of making education the first casualty of our chronic budget problem, I've now made our children and our future the first priority. Fighting to change Harrisburg, however, isn't just about fighting with Republicans with whom I disagree. It's about finding new ways to work together so that we can actually get things done for Pennsylvania. When I got here, you could have been forgiven for being pessimistic on this count. I was a Democratic governor. I was working with a historic Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. And taking over for a Republican governor who really didn't get much done with a hugely Republican legislature. Again, you could have been forgiven for thinking gridlock was on its way to Harrisburg. But I vowed to do things differently. I vowed to govern practically. I vowed to govern sensibly rather than engage in the same partisan squabbling that has left Harrisburg so broken for so long. I used the experience I gained as a business owner to find real solutions to Pennsylvania's problems. And I'm proud that we've been able to work together to actually get some results for Pennsylvania. Instead of just talking about putting our state government on a diet, I actually got it done. This year, I cut more than $2 billion. The largest cuts, too, and consolidations of government bureaucracy in our entire history. So we can save money while continuing to invest in education, in seniors, in the workforce training and manufacturing. Instead of just talking about comprehensive pension reform, we actually got it done. Our pension reform plan will reduce the risk faced by taxpayers. It will maintain fair benefits for state employees and ease the financial burden on our school districts by reducing fees we pay to Wall Street. I can't imagine, I can't remember any other time when both the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and the editorial page of the Washington Post were in agreement. But they were when Pennsylvania passed this landmark bill. So instead of just talking about investing in our economy, we actually got it done. We started to grow the economy by moving ahead on large projects, the Shell Cracker plant in Beaver, the Port of Philadelphia. We even have a new steel plant in Johnstown. And just maybe, maybe, Pennsylvania will have the next headquarters of Amazon. We still have a long way to go. But there's nothing more important to me and nothing I'm more focused on than continuing to grow Pennsylvania's economy. Meanwhile, we're making progress in helping families to cope with the heroin and opioid epidemic. We're helping law enforcement crack down on dealers and pill pushers. We're equipping our first responders with naloxone so that they can stop overdoses. We're investing more in treatment options. We're helping more of our seniors stay in their homes as they age and protecting their health, no matter what. Whether that means taking insurers to court to protect Medicare Advantage or fighting to stop Republicans in Washington from charging an age tax on health insurance. We've worked across the aisle to legalize medical marijuana. That brings relief to suffering patients, including many children. We finally brought our liquor system into the 21st century by allowing beer and wine to be sold at grocery stores and gas stations and expanding hours and sales at state stores. Now, some of you are not from Pennsylvania. This might not be as big a deal, but I grew up here in Pennsylvania. I'm a Pennsylvania native. Being able to buy wine and beer at the grocery store is a pretty damn big deal. And Libre's law is now the law of the land and strengthens penalties for animal cruelty, crimes in order to better protect our animal friends. And I've made a real commitment to restoring public trust by enacting some of the toughest executive branch reforms in the country, including getting rid of pay-to-play contracts, bringing transparency back into state contracting. I implemented a gift ban. And as governor, I'm not taking the salary and I pay for my own hotels and meals. Paid for lunch this today. I should have eaten lunch. Anyway, this is in stark contrast to the way Harrisburg has done business in the past. And I think that's important. So that's why I'm continuing to fight and that's why I will continue to fight. Clearly, we have a lot of work yet to do and the road ahead will not be easy. The culture in Harrisburg still needs to change. We still have an economy that needs more skilled workers, more growth. We still have too many families and businesses that are struggling. I believe we can find more common ground. I believe we can find more ways to work together to move Pennsylvania forward. But let me be clear. I will not let us go back to the old ways of doing business in the capital. I'm going to continue to fight to change Harrisburg so it works for all the people of the Commonwealth. I ran for this office because I believe my state, my Commonwealth, could do better. And I believed and I still believe that we deserve better. A better government, a better economy, a better future. I believed these things were worth fighting for and I still do. Since I've taken office, a Democratic Governor and a Republican General Assembly have worked together to get real results for Pennsylvanians. Again, we've restored most of the billion dollar cut to education. We've established a fair funding formula. We've accomplished real pension reform. We've made Pennsylvania healthier by expanding Medicaid. There are now 720,000 Pennsylvanians who have health insurance who didn't have it before. We've reduced the uninsured rate thereby to the lowest it's ever been in our history. We're growing our economy by eliminating the capital stock and franchise tax, by enacting a manufacturing tax credit, investing in workforce development, supporting big projects again, like the Shell Cracker plant, the Port of Philadelphia. And we're facing the opioid and heroin epidemic head-on, fighting back against a public health scourge that has touched all Pennsylvanians one way or another. In less than three years, we've managed to accomplish quite a lot. But we still have again much work to do. My goal has always been to change Harrisburg for the better, to make Harrisburg work for Pennsylvanians rather than for special interests and politicians. That new way of thinking is succeeding. And despite deeply divided government, we've accomplished a lot in our commonwealth. I will continue to bring rationality and common sense to the issues that face Pennsylvanians. And I will continue to stand in the way of the type of gridlock and partisan bickering that we know has crippled Washington. We cannot afford to play those games with the future of Pennsylvania. Again, thank you for having me here. Thank you for all of your work to the press, for telling the true story of what happens in our commonwealth to our citizens. All of us, all of us have a role to play in building the best Pennsylvania possible. Thank you very much.