Robert Bentley in 2014 Governor's State of the State speeches

On Free Trade: Spread word far & wide: Made in Alabama

I had the opportunity to travel there to recruit more jobs and strengthen relationships with Japan's biotech industry. I sat on the bus next to the CEO of Otsuka, the parent company of Pharmavite in Lee County. I told him about UAB and Southern Research Institute, and the work they do in the fields of bio-tech research. As a result, Otsuka will be meeting with those institutions to explore ways they can work together in the research and development of new products.

Companies like Otsuka have quickly recognized, as others have, that we have a positive business climate and that our job training program is second to none. But without doubt our greatest asset for any industry is our workforce, the men and women of this state who get up every day and go to work to produce, build and develop a product, a good or a service that is Made in Alabama.

On Health Care: Don't expand Medicaid, even if paid for by federal dollars

Essential to ObamaCare is Medicaid expansion--a federal government dependency program for the uninsured. Since 1980, Medicaid spending has increased nationally by over 1500%. Here in Alabama, Medicaid takes up 35% of our General Fund.

Under ObamaCare, Medicaid would grow even larger--bringing millions more people to a state of dependency on government, and saddling our state and our nation--the taxpayers--with the enormous expense.

Now they are telling us we'll get free money to expand Medicaid. Those are your hard-earned tax dollars. Our great nation is $17.2 trillion in debt and it increases by $2 billion every single day. That is why I cannot expand Medicaid in Alabama. We will not bring hundreds of thousands into a system that is broken and buckling.

On Health Care: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not Affordable

And the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not protect patients. 22% of primary care doctors account for 90% of primary care billing. If we were to add 300,000 to Medicaid--where would they receive care?

Already in Alabama, because of ObamaCare, over 87,000 people have seen a change in their coverage, and you or someone you know has likely seen your premiums double. Business and job growth is being stifled. Employers are leaving positions unfilled, or laying off workers so they can fall under the employee threshold that would require them to participate in ObamaCare.

On Technology: $1 billion for ATRIP and RAMP infrastructure improvements

The Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program, ATRIP--along with its companion program, the Rural Assistance Match Program, known as RAMP, are making over $1 billion available to counties and cities, and allowing much-needed road and bridge projects to move forward. Today more than one thousand road and bridge improvement projects are underway or soon will be because of ATRIP and RAMP.

On Welfare & Poverty: We are poorest state, but government just causes dependency

The statistics are sobering. The facts are indisputable. Never-ending cycles of a need for jobs, better job skills and better education, plague our communities. We resolve to reverse the trends that have troubled our state for decades.

We will never see an end to the plague of poverty by offering a deeper dependence on a flawed government system. We will never help our poorest citizens, or our future generations, by casting over them the net of federal government giveaway programs. We can break the cycle of poverty, but not with programs that drag our communities and our people into the downward spiral of dependence.