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Treasurer Dean Martin Inauguration Speech
January 4, 2007
Thank you. It’s quite an honor to be sworn in and take the oath of office from Justice O’Connor. I have the distinction and honor of having served and been first elected to the same State Senate Seat she once held.
I want to thank my family for their support, including my parents and especially my wife of 11 years Kerry.
I also want to thank Interim Treasurer Elliott Hibbs. We have worked closely during this transition, and during this time not only have we restored morale, but we have also attracted back a number of key personnel.
As your Chief Financial Officer of the State's bank, I am the steward of over 11 Billion Dollars of YOUR taxpayer money. Our first priority is the safety and security of those dollars. But we must also provide liquidity, to make sure we have the resources for this fast growing state. And while we are entrusted with your money, I will endeavor to make sure that we provide great yield, so that your tax dollars will go farther.
The new Treasurer’s office will be more open than ever before. I plan to develop new technology to open up the government’s finances, because again it’s your money, not the government’s, and you deserve to know what we’re doing with it.
Benjamin Franklin once said that for a democracy to survive and succeed, the population must be well educated. I believe his wisdom is very true to this day. In fact, I believe that not only does our democracy depend on it, but so does our free-market economy.
We are graduating students today who can’t make change at a cash register, who can’t balance their own checkbooks. And we have families that can’t keep their family budgets under 100% of their income. It is not enough that our children should just get by; we need to give them the tools to thrive.
That’s why I support the Governor's P20 recommendation for 4 years of math in high school, as long as… [applause]… We need to make sure that those 4 years of math include financial literacy, applied mathematics and economics. [applause] We need to make sure that our children are prepared for the real world. We should teach them not only the how of math, but the why. We need to teach them not only how to balance a checkbook, but why it is important. And our children, we must remember, are a lot smarter than some people may think; we should never shackle them to low expectations…. Because if we do, we only shackle our own economy.
As a state we need to stop planning for just one fiscal year, or just one more election cycle.
I have a vision for a prosperous Arizona; we need to change our government’s outlook and start planning long term. We need to prepare for growth, not only in transportation and infrastructure, but also for the inevitable economic downturn. We need to prepare for the needs of this State, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for our children’s children. And never mortgage tomorrow for a quick political gain today.
We’ll start with our children, because we must make sure that they are able not just to dream the Arizona dream, but to make it an Arizona Reality.
I thank you for entrusting me with this constitutional office, and I will work every day as Treasurer to make Arizona a better place. May God Bless this Great State of Arizona and its people. Thank you.
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Board of Investment
AUG 27 10:30am
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JUL 24th
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Please note: All meetings are open to the public.
Contact:
(602)-604-7800
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Fax:
(602) 542-7176
Email:
info@aztreasury.gov
