From: PW, Secretary's Office

Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 09:18 AM

To: Public Welfare State Employees
Subject: A message from acting Secretary Alexander

Good morning DPW colleagues,

While tomorrow is notable to many as St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to take a moment to remind all
of you about a significant event that took place 260 years ago today – March 16, 1751. It was the
birthday of James Madison, our fourth president, one of our republic’s founding fathers and a
man referred to in our nation’s history as the “Father of the Constitution.”

Madison made too many contributions to our nation to summarize here, but one of his most
significant contributions was his stalwart belief that our government should exist primarily to
secure the rights to which all citizens are entitled. Even more than two centuries ago, he voiced
concerns about the risks of having a federal government that could grow too large and stray from
the core principle of serving its people in securing their basic rights.

In 1788, Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal
government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are
numerous and indefinite.”

Here at DPW, we are entrusted with exercising some of those “numerous and indefinite” state
powers that have somehow diminished over the years in favor of many more federal powers that
Madison and our Founding Fathers did not envision. As we move forward, we plan to use these
delegated state powers to achieve exactly what James Madison and his fellow founding fathers
envisioned: true personal independence, self-reliance and freedom.

We are doing important work every day to help Pennsylvanians and carry out the vision of those
who founded our country and our commonwealth. Thank you for all you are doing to aid in
DPW’s efforts – and happy birthday President Madison!

Best regards,
Gary Alexander