“It wasn’t $120 million dollars that was a deficit. It was well over $200 million. Well over $200. We didn’t talk a whole lot about it before because we weren’t out there to whine or complain, we were just going to deal with it straight up.

Back in December 2010 when we took office, having to deal with the next legislative session… you may recall, about the middle of that first session, “Oh, the governor is going to take all the money from the rainy day fund.. oh, the governor is going to take all the money from the hurricane fund. Boo, hiss!” Well let me tell you something. A long about halfway through the legislative session, Fred Pablo and Kalbert Young come into my conference room and said “governor, we have to speak with you. Governor, we don’t know how much money is coming in and we don’t know how much money is going out. The finances of this state are in complete chaos, we’re not sure we can pay the bills at the end of the month.”

That’s what we were dealing with. Those are the circumstances we had to come to grips with. And let me tell you. There were hard choices to face. There were tough decision that had to be made.

But one of the reasons I’m announcing right now that I’m going to be running again for election is because over these past two years, thanks to your faith and your trust, and thanks to our friends in the legislature, we’ve turned this state around. We’re now on a sound, solid foundation. Financially, we now are achieving a new sense of confidence across this state… so that we can run on six year plan; our New Day Plan. Our New Day Plan now has a new way forward, because this state is now being run on a sound basis.”