E-commerce is so simple even a Governor can use it. Let me show you.
I have a new, good friend in the Governor of California, Gray Davis. But poor Gray is in a tough spot. He leads a state that can't play football and can't make good cheese.
He owes me 86 pounds of that fishbait they call California cheese because the Badgers whipped his alma mater Stanford in the Rose Bowl. But to be fair to my new friend, I want to send him the equivalent to 86 pounds of his cheese – 1 pound of our world championship Wisconsin cheese.
Gray needs to know what real cheese tastes like. He's living a deprived life out there.
So I'm going on-line to our great Wisconsin company, Swiss Colony, and with the simple click of a mouse, I'm going to make Gray's day. This is a great example of how a partnership between two Wisconsin companies, Swiss Colony and TDS, is helping them both succeed through E-Commerce.
Main Street businesses and corporations built today's strong economy. Now, we need to help these companies use E-Commerce to better compete and increase their profits.
To do so, our Department of Commerce will create a new focus on turning existing business incubators into e-business stimulators. And Dr. Raj Veeramani of UW-Madison is leading a new consortium of higher education, business and state government to makesure we take the greatest advantage of our newest tool of commerce. Companies like Lands End are leading Wisconsin into the future of E-Commerce.
Once online, businesses must have the certainty and the security that transactions are binding.
By passing an Electronic Transfer Act, Wisconsin will surpass other states by ensuring electronic purchases, contracts and signatures are completely legal – drastically reducing overhead and improving the bottom line.
And finally, we must make sure consumers have access to the Cyber Marketplace. So pass Speaker Jensen and Representative Hutchison's tax exemption for Internet access.
Growing our economy and changing the face of industry in Wisconsin will pose an incredible challenge for our workforce. Where will the workers of the future come from? And how will they learn the skills to succeed?
In just 16 short years, the number of people leaving the workforce will outstrip the number of people entering the job market. This will greatly exacerbate the worker shortage we have today in Wisconsin.
Rising to this challenge will require us to change the Face of the Future for the Wisconsin worker.
More seniors will be needed in our classrooms, science factories and service industries -- changing the very definition of "retirement." People may retire in their mid-50s to enjoy five to seven years of rest and relaxation before beginning a new "twilight" career. Or seniors may go directly into that new career as technology makes it easier to work without sacrificing health or time with their grandchildren.
The new economy will need the talents of the disabled as well as dynamic women entrepreneurs like Shirley Lanier, who founded Legacy Bank in Milwaukee.
And W-2 will need to build upon its remarkable success at helping former welfare mothers thrive in the workforce.
Next month, I will be unveiling a new study that shows just how incredibly successful W-2 is at moving families from welfare to work. The results will underscore why Harvard University hails W-2 as one of the most innovative programs in America.
To help working families meet their child care needs, we should develop the marketplace for second- and third-shift child care centers. The jobs of tomorrow certainly won't be 9-to-5. A $1 million investment now will pay big dividends for our families and businesses.
And finally, meeting our workforce demands will force us to look at the sensitive issue of crime-and-punishment in a different light. We have the lowest crime rate in 30 years because we're keeping the bad guys off the street. But we need to turn these bad guys back into good guys – because we need them to fill jobs and support their families.
An inmate can't leave prison, get a job and succeed if he can't read. Therefore, I am instructing the Department of Corrections to target the necessary resources for basic reading skills and GED studies so that no inmate will leave prison without being able to read and fill out a job application.
Instead of hitting the sack, inmates will be hitting the books.
An inmate also can't get a job if addicted to drugs or alcohol. So let's build upon our recent $40 million investment in prison rehabilitation programs by creating an alternative treatment program for felony drug offenders. Judges would be able to sentence criminals with no prior record or weapon offenses to this special program, where inmates will get treatment, attend class, and learn job and parenting skills.
I want to give credit for this concept to a strong partnership between Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher, Milwaukee County Chief Judge Michael Skwierawski and District Attorney E. Michael McCann.
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At the same time, let's put 100 new probation and parole agents on the streets of Milwaukee County so criminals make a safe transition back into the community. These agents do make a difference.
While we're talking about sentencing alternatives, pass the proposed changes to the criminal penalties code. I appreciate the tough work the Assembly did on this matter; now it's time to finish the job. We need to give our judges more authority to make sure the punishment truly fits the crime in Wisconsin.
Furthermore, we plan to bring all women inmates back to Wisconsin by year's end.
If these changes to correction's policy succeed, we can turn today's criminals into productive members of our workforce.
The bottom line is that we need to take advantage of the talent and skills of each and every person in Wisconsin.
The Face of the Future Wisconsin school must change too if we are to change the face of the Wisconsin worker. Learning will start from the earliest days of life and last throughout our golden years.
To accommodate the new learning needs of our society, our system of schools must be seamless -- flexible and dynamic enough to prepare our youngest student and our oldest worker for the tasks for the new economy. And the world must literally be the classroom with the help of our Study Abroad grants, international education initiative and distance learning technology.
The jobs of tomorrow will require students and workers to get high-skill training from technical college as well as greater expertise from a university. And workers will need to go back to these schools for more training throughout their careers.
We've talked for years about building this seamless system of schools. And programs like youth options, school-to-work, 2+2+2 and a new Virtual Technical High School are laying the foundation. Now, it's time to get it done.
I'm calling on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and the Wisconsin Technical College System Board to meet and overcome the final barriers to a truly integrated system of higher education.
Our K-12 schools must be the foundation for this new seamless system. Our schools are good. But being good today is not good enough for tomorrow.
Competition is clearly helping us build strong schools and improve the education of our children. Nowhere is this more evident than in charter schools, where the collaboration between parents and educators is awe-inspiring.
Just look at the Milwaukee Science Consortium – a new charter school developed by UW-Milwaukee and the Medical College of Wisconsin that will emphasize science and math. Can you think of a better idea for a school for the science-based economy of the next century?
The opportunity for these education partnerships must be available statewide, so I am proposing an expansion of the charter school program to allow any state university or technical college to develop its own school.
If we put power back in the hands of our parents and educators, they will create an education revolution that builds the dynamic schoolroom of the future.
Competition can help us push our students harder in math and science as well.
Sheppard Mollick, a parent and school board member from suburban Milwaukee, wants to stimulate more interest in science in his community by starting a science fair. Shep, it's a great idea, but let's take it even further by creating a State Science Fair. The winner would receive a full scholarship for their undergraduate and graduate studies at any University of Wisconsin System School.
We must also do a better job teaching our children to read, for reading is fundamental to all learning.
A recent National Education Goals Panel Report shows that progress in reading scores by Wisconsin fourth-graders has remained flat since 1992. That's not good enough for America's Education State.
To push Wisconsin forward, I am proposing an aggressive Excellence in Reading Initiative that:
⋅ Directs $1 million to develop innovative reading academies around the state.
⋅ Invests $350,000 to distribute the "best reading practices" over the Internet.
⋅ And convenes a statewide Governor's Reading Summit to be chaired by our First Lady, Sue Ann Thompson, with the help of Barbara Manthei of the Governor's Office of Literacy.
Our children must spend more time reading books and less time trading Pokemon cards.
If our children can't read, they can't participate in the new economy.
As we push our children and teachers harder, let's make sure we are rewarding success in the process. A new program called Award for Achievement creates a stronger correlation between the performance of our schools and the earning potential of our educators.
The framework for this program would set standards of accountability, such as:
⋅ Schools would have to test 95 percent of their students
⋅ Scores would have to improve for all students, including disadvantaged.
⋅ Schools would have to show year-to-year gains on measures such as achievement tests, attendance and dropout rates
⋅ And we would maintain local control by making participation voluntary to start.
If the performance of the students goes up in these areas – all staff in that school will receive financial awards of up to $3,000. If a school maintains the status quo or recedes – the public will certainly hold them accountable and changes will be made.
The Face of the Future in education demands that we set high standards and push our students to achieve. And when our students do, we should award those who taught them.
Finally, learning in the future must literally start from birth – whether in the home or the child care center. We're ready to create five new Early Learning Childhood Centers that utilize the latest innovations for developing the brain and stimulating learning in our children. From newborns to toddlers, these centers will start exposing our children to foreign languages, classical music, drama and reading. They'll paint, perform science experiments and dive into computer programs.
I want to thank the Legislature for their bipartisan support of these centers. Our investment will make sure even the most at-risk children enter school ready to learn.
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By changing the face of our schools, we will prepare our people to succeed in the jobs of tomorrow. But Wisconsin's competitiveness also calls us to change the Face of the Future in travel, energy and taxation.
Business travel in the future will improve as high-speed rail ties together air, road and mass transit options – allowing us to choose the fastest and most efficient means.
To spur this change along, I am calling for a $50 million state investment in the Midwest Rail Initiative, linking Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago with Amtrak's fastest trains. As chairman of Amtrak, I will be seeking $100 million in federal money to match our investment.
The Dane County Regional Airport will become the model for tomorrow's transportation hub in America: a one-stop access point for air, rail and ground travel. Soon, the business traveler will fly from Washington to Milwaukee, jump on a high-speed train to Madison,
then catch a bus to drop her at her doorstep just in time for dinner with the family cooked by her husband. No more lengthy layovers in airports or cars stranded in parking ramps.
Let's get high-speed rail running in Wisconsin by the year 2003.
Next, we must produce enough energy to power our new economy. We simply cannot tolerate situations like that of Proctor and Gamble in Green Bay, which shut down operations for 82 hours last summer due to a shortage of power.
In the past two years, we've come together, in a bipartisan fashion with business and environmental interests, to create a more efficient process for expanding our energy infrastructure and develop the nation's first transmission company.
Now, we must get more transmission lines built in an environmentally safe and secure way. And then we must create a first-of-its-kind Generation Company to produce more power within our borders. The Genco will grow our generation capabilities by pooling and sharing energy resources in the state.
Remaining competitive with neighboring states means improving our tax code as well. Let's work together to level the playing field and implement single factor. This one tax change alone could directly result in 67,000 new jobs. And job creation is good for both political parties.
We must also make sure our tax policies continue to empower the workers of Wisconsin by letting them keep more of their hard-earned money. We are in the midst of the most aggressive and consistent era of cutting taxes in state history. Look at what we've accomplished for Wisconsin families:
In the past 14 years, we cut taxes more than 90 times saving the average Wisconsin family a remarkable $8,300!
This past fall alone we cut taxes by more than $1 billion – saving families $522 through a rebate, income tax reduction, and property tax cut.
The ongoing investment in our people is paying off with a red-hot economy that churned out yet another surplus of $380 million.
We should give the people another dividend. Now that we can afford the property tax rent credit, let's restore it. Get it to my desk.
What we must not do with this surplus, however, is go on an election-year spending binge. We absolutely do not need to spend all this money.
With wise planning and fiscal prudence, we can change the face of the Wisconsin taxpayer into a happy one.
Ladies and gentlemen, without a doubt, the Face of the Future in Wisconsin promises to be the healthiest ever.
The technological advances produced by the new economy will help our children grow stronger and our adults live longer.
But improved health care and pharmaceutical discoveries come with a price. We must make sure health coverage remains affordable for families and seniors.
BadgerCare is proving to be a Godsend for low-income working families like Bruce and Marge Carr. Bruce and Marge were working hard to provide for their two boys when they were suddenly blessed with triplets. Unable to afford their health premiums with five mouths to feed, BadgerCare filled the void.
In just six months, almost 53,000 people have bought into this insurance program. And we're working aggressively with Milwaukee Public Schools to get low-income uninsured children into BadgerCare. Let's make sure this popular program can meet its growing demand by creating an $11 million reserve fund.
As our population grows older, a premium will be placed on keeping health costs for seniors affordable as well. Family Care will give seniors affordable long-term care through an array of choices to meet their specific needs and keep them at home. I'm pleased to announce that Family Care will start this year in Fond du Lac, Portage and La Crosse counties.
Seniors also are facing a crisis with skyrocketing prescription drug costs. The price for these drugs is rising seven times higher than the rate of inflation and faster than the ability to pay for someone on a fixed income.
Tonight, I am proposing a Low-Income Prescription Drug Savings Plan that will save needy seniors citizens $792 a year in drug costs.
Anyone over the age of 65 with an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty level will be eligible. The program:
⋅ Cuts the prices for the most expensive and high volume drugs covered by Medicaid.
⋅ Passes the savings to low-income seniors who pay for medications out of pocket.
⋅ Requires pharmacies to charge no more than the Medicaid reimbursement rate for low-income Medicare beneficiaries.
⋅ Expands Medicaid eligibility to the federal poverty level for seniors and disabled.
⋅ Provides participants with an easy-to-use prescription card.
