| STATE OF THE STATE: Text of Delaware governor's prepared address
Lieutenant Gov. Carney, President Pro Tem Adams, Speaker Spence, members of the 144th General Assembly, members of the Delaware judiciary, other elected officials, members of my Cabinet, state employees, distinguished guests, my family and my fellow Delawareans
I am particularly proud to appear before you for this State of the State address as it kicks off my last year as your Gov.. As you all know, my career in elected public office started in this Chamber, where so much of what I worked on as your Gov. began as a priority for me as a legislator.
My annual appearances before you, my legislative friends, have not only been an opportunity to remember my roots but also reaffirm my long-standing priorities, such as creating world-class schools, protecting our precious environment, fighting to keep and create jobs, and working to make Delaware a healthier state.
Build a firm foundation
The city schools need the extra support, said Superintendent Gerald D. Dawkins, a non-voting member of the foundation board. Budget reductions have led to cuts in music, arts, physical education and foreign language instruction in the district, especially in elementary schools. Foundation supporters hope to bolster those offerings and others. "What's in front of us is an awful lot of potential," Dawkins said. School districts in some large cities, such as Tampa and San Francisco, generate millions of dollars per year with full-time staff devoted to raising funds. Despite their initial efforts in mid-Michigan, an executive for the National School Foundation Association says fundraising in urban areas with struggling economies is tough.
Senator Feingold Charts Course
But we agree that we ought to have a commission that allows three or four states to win a competition to become pilot projects to show their vision of how they can move toward universal coverage in their state. For some, it might be a single-payer state, it might be an employer coalition, co-op type of approach. He says health savings accounts; I'm skeptical of it. But the idea is that we would actually have some evidence on the ground of what works and what doesn't. This has all been a theoretical debate since, God knows, Harry Truman. And it goes nowhere. So we're excited about this. The Heritage Foundation has endorsed it, the Brookings Institution, the SEIU. The Heritage Foundation is very conservative. The SEIU might be the most liberal union. They all come together, saying, "You know, we think we can show our stuff with this kind of deal." On No Child Left Behind Act I'm been trying for years to try to modify it in some way, try to fix it, to make it less onerous.
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