 You know, violence and trauma don't occur in a vacuum. They spread more easily when there are gaps between our services, between the healthcare system and the education system and the economic and community development and other systems that occur to support young children. So while I was working on home visiting, I've moved over now to work on another part of that system. And I'm just going to give you a quick update because there are very few good things happening for children in this country, but there was a good thing that happened last session. We were able to get $250 million for something called preschool development grants. It's a very small down payment on a larger presidential initiative, which would be $75 billion, which would fund home visiting, better childcare and better preschool. We're going to get that too, but right now we have a small down payment. And the good news is that all states can apply and Texas has sent in their intent to apply. So we are very excited. We'll be able to have money to fund about 15 states, and we have intents from 30 states. And I was just so glad when Texas sent theirs in. The other program that I oversee at the department is called Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Fund. And that has a whole lot to do with child abuse and neglect because that is helping to pull together all the systems that serve young children. We fund 20 states with a billion dollars. It's quite an extensive and complicated program. Unfortunately, Texas did not apply for that, but the learnings that are coming out of the states like Maryland and Illinois and Washington and Oregon are applicable in every state. And so we're very much hoping that we're able to take what we learn in these 20 states and apply it to states around the country. So I wanted to give you that quick update, but mainly I was here to introduce my husband. I have known Lloyd since I was 20 years old. I met him when he was running for student body president at the University of Texas. He got my vote. I got his heart and the rest is history. There are three things I want you to know about Lloyd is you won't find anybody who works harder. I had somebody in Congress tell me the other day that he is the most prepared person. There's a story that went around years ago that even on Christmas day after we'd opened all the family gifts and we'd gotten our kids who were young then down for naps, he went down the Capitol and was upset because it was closed. So he works hard. He's prepared. He's the kind of person you want behind you. He also is always there for kids. He started out as a young lawyer working on the Edgewood case and school finance. And he has maintained that and that's why he was able to get that. There were very few things coming out the session. He got the Child Care Commission or the Children's Commission through. He was there because he really cares about kids. He cares so very, very deeply. And the third thing is you can really trust him. My friends tell me they love having Lloyd represented because they don't have to send a letter to remind him how to vote because they know he's always voting the right way. There was a story that went around a long time ago about him also in terms of being trustworthy that you could play poker with him over the telephone. So anyway, I have a great time living with him, but mainly it's really, really exciting to live with someone who cares so deeply about children and acts on their beliefs. So Lloyd. Thank you so much, honey, for that introduction. Kathy actually asked, who was the highest ranking official federally in our family? And I said, how could there be any doubt that Libby is the highest ranking official in our family on many things? But we are pleased to be here with you and salute, of course, Madeleine. It is amazing that in the legislature we have had and the legislature we have right now with the many challenges that Ruth deals so effectively with up there, that Madeleine has been able to squeeze out in these tough budget times with the help of many members of our Bear County legislative delegation some additional dollars to address these problems. And that she continues working, as she said, with some folks at the state level to try to see that more resources are allocated this way. When you think about the challenges we face and the numbers that have been outlined by Madeleine about the dimensions of this problem, I think one of the main things is to keep hope alive that there is the potential to do more and do better by our children here in the state of Texas. And when you look around, I noticed, in visiting with some of you at the coffee break a little while ago, at table after table here, there are people really making a difference in the lives of children. And we can talk about this in Washington in terms of billions and trillions, and we can see the numbers of how big the problem remains. But I know, table by table, individual by individual here, you're making a difference, one child, one family at a time. And so much of what we are trying to do is to have our neighbors be aware of this problem other than when they hear about a disaster that's occurred. We just had this awful one out northwest of Austin in Cedar Park with the discovery in a shallow grave of a little boy buried by his mother and her boyfriend. And it's just gotten page after page of coverage as with some terrible incidents that occurred here in San Antonio about a year ago. And if we could keep people focused other than just by the drama of the tragedy a little longer at what the things are we could do to prevent these horrible situations from happening, how much better off our entire state would be. Madeline and Kathy with the great work that they've been doing and the other groups here talking about it if not moved by your heart, moved by your pocketbook in terms of how much failing to deal with these issues cost us economically. At the national level, and I'm just going to touch very briefly because I know we're running a little behind schedule on some of the things happening and mainly not happening at the national level, I was pleased we were able to get the commission to eliminate child abuse and neglect fatalities approved and signed into a law. And a number of you were at the first hearing, first field hearing that they conducted down at UTSA downtown. They accepted my invitation to start here in San Antonio knowing that we have a really big problem here but we also have many people trying to contribute to a solution. Madeline came down, we had a number of local advocates and since that time the commission has moved on across the country to Tampa, to Detroit, to Denver, they're about to have a hearing in Vermont. I've been encouraging them and asking my colleagues to encourage them to come out with their recommendations early to give us some interim recommendations. They just extended as they are entitled to do under the act for about another half a year to prepare their work and get it to us. But I hope they will have some information to us early, not only about what they found as our greatest needs but where they have found programs that are really working well that we can build on and share best practices of what we're doing here in San Antonio that works and what may be working at the other end of the country that works that we can try to replicate here. When Congress does act, I think we already know that some of the areas that need improvement the most. Some of you wave from CPS there at the back table and I salute you for the efforts that you make. The Texas Monthly recently described the tough work at CPS as the perfect pressure cooker understaffed, overworked, high stress. Many of you saw the report earlier in the year of a 38% turnover of people that quit within their first year of job. What business here in San Antonio could Valero or USAA or any of the other private enterprises that we count on for economic growth in this community, HEB, can they get by on a turnover of 38% a year in the first year? And when folks see a kind of dead end and not a career path there, they're overwhelmed and then they're asked to handle such tremendous caseloads. And so the finger is immediately pointed at CPS when something goes wrong and sometimes that's where the finger needs to be pointed. But we've set up a system that is designed to fail for some of our children under this system. And I think much of our focus has to be on getting more resources there so that they can do their job better, provide a career for the people that are willing to commit to service there and meet these needs. It was good to see representatives locally from the Family Nurse Partnership here because I certainly agree with Madeleine that that's one of the areas in which federal resources and additional state and local resources can be most wisely invested. We struggled to get the home visiting program continued. It was part of the Affordable Care Act. The much discussed Obamacare, one key of many provisions, was a home visiting program. And it would have expired this September. We were able to get it extended for only one more year. It will have to be renewed in March of next year and it will be a struggle to get the finances we need for that program. I think it's particularly important that we do so. And hearing the statistics up here that we're serving only about 5% of Texas families, that's true pretty much across the country. There are many more resources that could be allocated to the program, I think, to great advantage. About the only new piece of legislation that we were able to get through and it only passed the Senate about a week ago was the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which is designed to provide more support for kids, particularly that are aging out of foster care, who many times are targeted in trafficking. A series of trafficking bills were approved in Congress. I think they're a step forward. They don't involve significant new resources. And ironically, most of the speechmaking about it in the House occurred the same week that people were seeking to undermine the 2008 anti-trafficking provisions for unaccompanied minors at our border. I think the provisions have to apply to all of these children and that children who have come here from violence from Honduras or El Salvador deserve due process protections and it's important to not undermine their rights and not get them back into trafficking. Madeline made reference to evidence-based programs and I believe that all of our dollars are so precious, tax dollars, they all need to be evidence-based with some ability to have programs that are demonstration projects and allow for new ideas and innovation. But I find that often the whole term evidence-based and that something is not sufficiently evidence-based is just an excuse to deny services. And one of the best examples of the total contradiction, indeed, hypocrisy over this subject in Washington, is what happened the last week that we were in session. And that is that the amount of dollars, the research dollars as a part of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that we used to call generally welfare was eliminated entirely, zeroed out. And Temporary Assistance for Needy Families was actually the only major program that was cut. This was all the result of some budgetary issues and how the baseline of the budget was scored by the Congressional Budget Office not because of anything that had gone wrong in the program. And it really demonstrates the unwillingness of this Congress to fund programs even to find out and to verify that something is evidence-based. I hope that in the lame duck session we'll be able to address that. Another whole area, and I see Representative Villarreal has come in also who's been very involved in health care, are a whole range of health care issues that are up. The Children's Health Insurance Program also comes up for renewal next March, and it's important that we get it reauthorized and big challenges to see it authorized. The SAMHSA program and St. PJ's just got $900,000 in a grant, hard to get grant through SAMHSA. It's been unauthorized for over a decade and needs to be reauthorized and authorized at a higher level. On health care generally, of course, the greatest need in Texas is to see Medicaid expansion. I had, when we did a health fair over here last December, the number of families that came in in response to interest about the Affordable Care Act who were too poor to get assistance because of the failure to expand Medicaid was really remarkable. I believe that we've just had the ninth state with a Republican governor find a way to accept the hundred cents on the dollar that are available through the Medicaid program. I was visiting over in the Wheatley Court yesterday with Judge Wolfe about a renewed effort. He had a health care summit in which some of you probably participated on Monday to try to get the legislature to find a way under whatever other name we might want to deal with Medicaid expansion. And in talking with Judge Sakai, again, both at the federal level and the state level, we might do more about child abuse by expanding access through Medicaid for both mental health treatment and substance abuse. Big issues that we face. You're going to hear more about the state legislative arena from a series of experts now in a panel. I would just say that in Washington, and I think this is true at the state level, so often we hear on these critical issues, well, we just can't throw money at the problem. And that's true. We don't want money wasted and sometimes money is not the answer. But I've yet to find anyone who says that about our national security. And what I find with so many of my colleagues is that in throwing money at the problem, they throw words at the problem. We wouldn't do that about our national security and we ought not to do it about our children's security. So I think our message to you in short is that we need to see the resources dedicated to what you're doing to really effectively fight child abuse. And we can't do it with just words, just as we need strong national security. We need strong family security and we need the dollars at both the state and the federal level to provide those services. My office is down by Santa Rosa Hospital. It's on the sidewalk so often when we cannot solve a problem by passing a new bill, we can't help an individual group in applying for federal resources or an individual family that has come up against a federal barrier. So we welcome hearing from you at the San Antonio office and always your advice and your experience about how we can do a better job to address these critical issues. I salute each of you for your commitment to our children and especially to Dr. Fletcher for her leadership with Voices, which is really a unique organization. Thank you so much.