Wes Moore

But I believe everyone in this country deserves a fair shot.

And that's, that distance is where I think this country has had historic challenges.

Where I think you have some people who think that the definition of fairness is everyone ends up in the same spot.

Absolutely.

And I just fundamentally disagree because I don't think that the answer for everybody should be the same.

It's the same reason why here in the state of Maryland, we push so hard on things like alternative pathways for education, where we have made historic investments.

I've quadrupled the number of apprenticeship and trade slots that we have within our state.

We've gotten rid of this idea that we should be grading or evaluating our high schools based on their four-year college acceptance rate.

Because I'm like, that is a key input, but it's not a key performance indicator, that I want to make sure that every single student in our state has a chance for lifelong work, wages, and wealth.

And if that includes a four-year degree, fantastic.

And if it does not, fantastic.

That we need to make sure that every single person in our state...

has a chance for lifelong opportunities and economic growth and sustainable economic mobility.

But we should not be telling each and every one of them what it should look like.

No, because I think that there's a few things that I think the people of my state know.

One is that we believe in fiscal discipline, fiscal responsibility, that we've now passed – we've done something that people in Washington seemingly can't do.

I've now passed four budgets, balanced budgets, that have actually – where the general fund is smaller –

than the year before.

So since I've been the governor, we have forced our state to do more with less.

But do you know what's also happened during that time period, even though we are, you know, repeatedly shrinking the size of our state budget?