CHATOM, Alabama – National leaders would do well to look at the Heart of Dixie as a model for how to run a government, Gov. Robert Bentley said Wednesday.

Bentley, who answered questions from audience members and later the media after his keynote address at the Delta Regional Authority's workforce development summit in Washington County, said the next president should come from the ranks of the nation's governors. He did not offer up himself but said the federal government has a lot to learn from Montgomery.

"The federal government does not create jobs. They can impede jobs. But they don't create jobs," he said. "The federal government needs to look at Alabama. I'll tell them how to run the government."

In addition to dispensing some unsolicited advice to the federal government, Bentley pontificated on subjects ranging from Tuesday's federal court rulings on the Affordable Care Act to Alabama's prekindergarten program. He also defended the state's huge delegation to an international air show in London.

Bentley said he was proud that Alabama's contingent at this month's Farnborough Air Show, at nearly 100 public officials and business leaders, dwarfed that of competitor states. He said he was the only governor who was "working the show."

Bentley noted that both of Alabama's U.S. senators, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, and deans from the Auburn University, the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Huntsville were among those who attempted to build on the success of luring an Airbus plant to Mobile.

"We're the only state that does that – and it shows," he said.

Experts long have regarded Alabama's prekindergarten program as one of the county's best but have lamented that it serves so few children. Bentley said the state has put an additional $10 million into the initiative each year of his governorship. He said he supports continued expansion and said it would be targeted at the students who need it most. He said all students in impoverished Wilcox County, for instance, have access to prekindergarten.

"If you don't have a foundation, it's like building your house on sand," he said.

Asked about Tuesday's competing federal appeals court rulings – one declaring health insurance subsidies illegal in states that did not set up their own exchanges under the Affordable Care Act and one ruling them legal – Bentley said he expects the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the split.

Echoing comments Tuesday by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, the governor said he hopes the high court strikes down the subsidies and that the whole law implodes as a result.

"It's a way we, as states, can fight Obamacare, and that's what we did," he said.