Transcript
MS. ISABEL V. SAWHILL: Welfare Reform & Beyond project at Brookings, and we have been helped in the effort of organizing and planning this event by many other colleagues at Brookings. The Urban Center in particular, and the new Tax Policy Center that is jointly sponsored by Brookings and the Urban Institute.
I also want to acknowledge some of the other groups who are doing such important work in this area, some of whom are with us today. In particular the Rockefeller Institute, and Don, we're so glad you could join us today. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities is doing important work in this area, and Nick Johnson is here from the Center in the front row. They have some new papers that I think you'll find out on the back table along with other interesting materials.
I also want to thank Doug Howard for making the time to be here today from the State of Michigan, and Angela Monson who is the President of the National Conference for State Legislatures and who we're very very pleased to have with us today. I should say that we have worked very closely with NCSL in all of our work and it's been a wonderful partnership.
Let me just make a couple of quick announcements about logistics. This morning's event is being WebCast live on the Internet at www.brookings.edu. And for those of you who are watching from your office or from home and would like to submit a question, you can do so by sending an e-mail to question@brookings.edu, and we will have plenty of time later in the program for questions and comments from the audience. We suspect there are many people in the audience who have as much to contribute to this discussion as those up here on the panel.
Now I want to finally introduce today's moderator, Neal Peirce. Neal is known to most of us as by far the most serious journalist who has worked over the years in this whole area of state and local issues. He's been writing on these topics for about as long as I can remember, and that's a pretty long time. He's been with the National Journal, with Congressional Quarterly and has written for many newspapers across the country. He is currently Chairman of the Citistates Group. This is a group of journalists and civic leaders who are interested in creating sustainable and competitive metropolitan regions.
So Neal, with that let me turn this over to you.
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