September 10, 2009

"Remarks to 51st-Annual Governor’s Conference on Economic Development"

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for taking time to participate in this conference about the economic future and prosperity of Missouri.

I’m honored and pleased to welcome you to the Governor’s Conference on Economic Development for the first time as your chief executive. And I look forward to continuing to be part of this distinguished meeting in the years to come.

One of my top responsibilities as Governor is to bring people together to focus on the economic growth and development of Missouri. It’s a job that requires cooperation, collaboration and a healthy spirit of competition.

As everyone in this room is aware, our state and our nation are facing historic economic challenges. But here in Missouri, we aren’t letting those challenges define us.

Instead, we’re working together to face these challenges head-on, and we’re creating new opportunities to transform our economy for the future.

One-hundred years ago, Missouri’s economy was based almost exclusively on agriculture and heavy industry. Today, these sectors continue to be essential pillars of our economic foundation. But in a new century built on micro-chips and nano-technology, agriculture and heavy industry alone can’t sustain our economy.

To compete – and win -- in the 21st century, we must encourage entrepreneurship and small-business growth; enhance our workforce; and embrace emerging science and technology as critical industries of tomorrow.

Here in Missouri, we have the people. We’re developing the tools. And we are ready to turn this economy around.

Let me take few minutes to tell you how.

Many of us in this room grew up in small towns. And running through the heart of most of these communities was Main Street. The hub of local commerce, Main Street offered nearly everything a family needed on a daily basis – a barbershop and a grocery story; the pharmacy and a local bank.

Main Streets are a vital part of our Missouri way of life, and they’re critical to our economic prosperity. In fact, the overwhelming majority of employers in our state are small businesses – operations with big goals, but just a handful of employees.

This economic crisis has hit our small businesses especially hard. Too many small businesses are struggling just to keep their doors open. And too many would-be entrepreneurs can’t access the start-up capital they need to get off the ground.

Our economic transformation begins with the revitalization of Main Streets across Missouri – from my hometown of De Soto, to Maryville, to Kirksville and Webster Groves.

That’s why I felt it was vital to implement two small-business-friendly initiatives this year.

First, I worked closely with Republican leaders in the General Assembly to eliminate the Missouri franchise tax for more than 16,500 small businesses across the state. That’s more than 82 percent of all the businesses that owed or paid the franchise tax last year.

This tax cut will generate a savings of about one-thousand dollars a year for eligible businesses … and it eliminates an unnecessary burden on the businesses that are the backbone of Missouri communities.

I signed this legislation during a visit to Kelly’s Furniture, a family-owned business in Kirksville. Even in these difficult times, Kelly’s is growing. When I visited their store, they were hard at work, constructing a new wing that will house a flooring outlet and create several new jobs.

An extra thousand dollars a year for Kelly’s Furniture won’t finance that new addition – but it will help the owners keep the lights on while they do so. Even more than that, by eliminating the franchise tax for these folks, we’ve removed one more piece of bureaucratic red tape from this business, and thousands more across Missouri.

That’s a step in the right direction.

This year, I also worked with the Missouri Development Finance Board and my Department of Economic Development to initiate the Missouri Small-Business Loan Program … a pool of two-million dollars to provide loans, up to about twenty-five thousand bucks, for small businesses in Missouri.

We’ve already awarded the first several rounds of these loans – to Web-development companies and children’s toy-makers; to heavy equipment operators and landscaping companies; and dozens of other entrepreneurs who are – literally – moving this economy forward every single day.

In addition to expanding these two resources to spark business growth, we’ve also been making the tough decisions required to keep the state’s financial house in order. To keep our budget in balance, we were required to trim the state’s operating budget for the current fiscal year, including making significant headcount reductions.

These types of decisions are never easy … but they’re vital to maintain our strong financial standing. And they’re working.

Just this week, we learned that Fitch’s Ratings has once again awarded Missouri their triple-A bond rating. This is great news for our state, and a clear indication that our business climate remains strong, even amidst the current economic uncertainty.

Transforming our economy starts with fostering that strong business climate. But it also requires a workforce that is trained, reliable and ready to compete for the jobs of tomorrow … whether at small businesses, or our largest companies.

As Governor, I know Missouri is home to the hardest-working, most dependable workforce in the nation. And I’m taking steps to make us even more competitive.

Developing a 21st-century workforce requires a serious commitment to education – at every level. This year, I worked with the Republican-led General Assembly to sign a budget providing record funding for our K-12 classrooms, even in the face of our current economic challenges.

And we did that while holding the line on taxes.

We also passed a budget that protected Missouri families from a tuition increase at our two- and four-year public colleges and universities. While students in other states are facing double-digit tuition spikes, Missouri youth went back to school this month without an increase in tuition or academic fees. Period.

Beyond the classroom, we’re also ensuring that our young people have access to real-world opportunities to learn work skills – and to gain a competitive edge for the careers of tomorrow. This summer, our Next-Generation Jobs Team put more than seven-thousand young Missourians, ages 16 to 24, to work in cutting-edge positions all across our state.

Funded by the federal recovery act, we were able to match Missouri youth with physical therapists at Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph; with Burns & McDonnell, a leading design and engineering firm in Kansas City; with ABC Laboratories in Columbia; with Pro Energy in Sedalia; with BJC HealthCare here in St. Louis; and with hundreds of additional employers.

After they finish school, we want these highly motivated, educated young people to live, work and raise their families here in Missouri. By exposing these youth to next-generation careers in their fields of interest, we have shown them that they can do just that.

I’m pleased to welcome a group of Missouri youth who participated in the Next-Generation Jobs Team to this conference today. Would these special guests please stand?

And would you all please join me in expressing our pride for their accomplishments in this program?

Here in Missouri, we are building the workforce that will lead our economic transformation for years to come. And that means focusing not only on younger workers, but also on older, more experienced professionals – folks who are transitioning from one career to another, or who are simply looking for a new start.

When it comes to experienced workers, our military veterans are a group of highly skilled, highly professional men and women – folks we want and need in the Show-Me State’s workforce. Earlier this year, I signed a bill that will help draw more of these men and women to Missouri by gradually phasing out the state tax on military retirement income.

This phase-out will begin in twenty-ten, and we’ll gradually reduce the tax by 15 percent a year, for six years. Under this schedule, the state’s tax on military retirement income will be gone – 100 percent – by twenty-sixteen. According to the Missouri Association of Veterans Organizations, Missouri will only be the 13th state in the nation to extend this tax cut to our military veterans. And only two of our bordering states currently offer this benefit. With our strong military presence, at Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air Force Base and elsewhere in the state, Missouri is often a temporary home for thousands of military families. By eliminating the state tax on military retirement income, we’ll not only be saying thank you to those who sacrificed for our freedom … but we’ll also be strengthening our workforce by encouraging these trained and talented men and women to move to Missouri… permanently.

In ramping up our aggressive strategy for workforce development, we must also take a long-term look at Missouri’s economic road ahead … and visualize the industries, opportunities and technologies that will play vital roles in the years to come.

As we look toward our future, we must be ready to embrace science, engineering and technology not only as tools to improve our quality of life, but also as essential components of the 21st-century economy.

Missouri is ready to lead the way in growing these high-demand industries right here in our state. And, in fact, we’re already ahead of the curve.

In recent years, we’ve seen tremendous growth in the life sciences here in Missouri, especially in the specialties of plant science and animal health. We’re developing a cutting-edge life-sciences corridor across our state … from St. Joseph -- which happens to be the home of the United States Animal Health Association -- to Columbia to St. Louis.

My administration is actively supporting the growth and enhancement of this industry … both by nurturing the companies we already have here in Missouri, and by attracting new businesses to our state. We’re tackling these issues in a unified way, drawing on the expertise of multiple departments, including Economic Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources.

We’re also drawing on the expertise of our educational leaders, both at the Missouri University of Science & Technology and in our elementary and secondary schools, to ensure that our students have the technical skills necessary to excel in these in-demand jobs.

Bringing this type of increased scientific and technological investment to our state will take innovative thinking, and we must have a wide variety of economic resources at our disposal. This year, by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the state legislature, we passed a jobs bill that significantly boosts the number of tools we now have in our toolbox to help these enterprises take off.

Together, we expanded our successful Quality Jobs Program, which provides economic incentives to companies that create careers that pay wages above the county average and offer health insurance benefits to employees.

The Quality Jobs Program has been an invaluable tool in encouraging cutting-edge employers to relocate to Missouri or expand existing operations in our state … companies like Boehringer-Ingelheim, a veterinary pharmaceuticals lab in St. Joseph; or EaglePicher, the Joplin-based producer of the lithium-ion batteries that power the international space station.

For companies in the sciences, I have a clear message: The state of Missouri is open for business. And we have the people and the tools to help you succeed.

Attracting these next-generation, high-tech businesses to Missouri requires economic competition … But it also requires having the infrastructure in place to connect these businesses to partners, suppliers and customers, whether those folks are just down the road, or around the world.

Right now, far too many Missourians lack access to high-speed, broadband Internet. For those communities that aren’t hooked up, it’s like watching the railroad or the Interstate of yesterday pass your town by.

Just last month, my administration partnered with Sho-Me Technologies, a subsidiary of the Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative in Marshfield, to submit an application for federal recovery funds that would boost our broadband accessibility dramatically. Under this plan, we would lay an additional twenty-five hundred miles of fiber-optic cable throughout Missouri, and construct 200 new towers – bringing the power and possibilities of the Internet to every corner of the state.

In 2009, high-speed Internet access is vital not only for success in business. It’s also becoming a critical tool for education, health care and numerous other applications. My administration will continue to be aggressive in our plans to expand the reach of broadband Internet throughout Missouri … because the status quo simply is not an option.

That’s a quick update on where Missouri’s economic transformation stands today. And I think you can see that we’ve been busy during these first few months in office.

Here in Missouri, we are the inheritors of a rich heritage – a heritage of mom-and-pop businesses along Main Streets all across the Show-Me State; of heavy manufacturing; and family farms and agriculture. We are committed to fighting for, and preserving, those businesses and that cherished way of life.

But our eyes are also focused on a bright future … a future of cutting-edge technologies and break-through discoveries. A future where Missouri entrepreneurs and scientists pioneer new technologies that change the way we communicate and conduct business; cure the most devastating diseases; and blaze trails through frontiers we cannot yet imagine.

That future is within our reach … but only if we continue to work together.

And so, in the coming year, I am asking for your support. As we look at the most effective ways to jumpstart our economy, we know it’s fastest to begin with folks who are already invested in Missouri.

So, in the months to come, my administration will outline a concerted and bold agenda to help existing Missouri businesses grow and expand.

I recently began a listening tour to hear directly from local Missouri businesses, both large and small, about their needs, their aspirations and their challenges. That tour will continue in the weeks to come, and those conversations will form the framework of a policy package we submit when the General Assembly returns in January.

As Missouri’s business and economic leaders, we need you to be involved in this process. I urge you to continue to partner with Economic Development Director Martinez and her team; learn about all the incentives and resources the state of Missouri has to offer; and share your thoughts about new opportunities and initiatives we need to explore.

And when your businesses look to grow and expand, I hope you’ll think Missouri first.

Because with the right tools and the right workforce, we can make twenty-ten a year of real growth for businesses across the Show-Me State. And together, we will.

In conclusion, I hope you leave this conference armed with the knowledge that we are transforming the economy of the Show-Me State, and we will emerge from these economic challenges smarter and stronger than ever before.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in the years to come to help you achieve your business goals … and to lead the nation in building the economy of tomorrow.

Thank you.