To set the stage for this, if you look back at our generation, essentially your parents, if you look back at the generation we came in through the 1960s in the country changed radically in ways that you cannot imagine. Unlike the relationship you had with your parents through the most part were you talk to back and forth in your shared values and even musical taste, unlike that kind of relationship we could not have got. We loved and respected our parents but they did not understand us at all. We did not understand them. We really did set out to develop a new country, a new culture in many ways, and we did. It was not so easily done. Our parents went through the great war, world war ii. They came back having seen horrors and they had fought for their country and wanted nothing more but to settle down and live a decent life where hard work was recorded where they could simply raise kids and have a family. They were very different than we were. There was a war going on in that generation
Good evening. You are already getting applies. I do not know how much i need to say. Let me just give a warm welcome and thanks to governor howard dean for joining us today for our discussions and exploring Bipartisan Solutions seminar. We are looking at three topics in the seminar, as you know, budget, financing the american dream, immigration, energy policy. Perhaps the most fundamental issue is the one we are about to discuss right now, financing the american dream. Unless we have the resources, how can we possibly enact policy change . We are fortunate to have an expert with us here on this issue. Governor dean is a wellknown, respected figure in american politics, former chair of the Democratic Congressional committee which he implemented the 50 state policy. Which was credited with helping the democrats make historic gains in the 2006 and 2008 election. He was a six term governor of vermont where he was known as a conservative democrat which ties in directly to what we discussed