Josh Shapiro

Now, I will tell you that some of this we've done administratively.

meaning I've signed executive orders and we've made those changes.

But on other things, we've worked with the legislature to pass new laws to speed up our permitting.

And it hasn't always been easy.

Understand, I'm a Democrat as governor.

I've got a divided legislature.

I was the only governor for a while with a divided legislature.

Now there's one other.

I've got a Senate led by Republicans by just two seats and a House led by Democrats by just one seat.

But this is an area where I've been able to bring Democrats and Republicans together in order to make progress in terms of passing this permitting reform.

And again, proof is in the pudding.

What we are seeing is that businesses are coming here and the economy's growing.

Let me give you one more example.

This may seem really small to you, but it's a big deal, okay?

When I talk about a permit,

If you want to be a barber in Pennsylvania, you need a permit or technically it's called a license, but I put it all in some kind of certificate.

Yeah, right.

The day I took office, it took 20 days for a barber to get their permit to be able to go out and cut hair.

Today you get it same day, you get it within that day.

That may seem silly to you, but understand, I called my barber, I asked him, I said, how many heads do you cut a day?