Accessing textInput's inside a panel

Question

Okay, so I'm creating a panel with a form inside it to force a user to log into my application.
It's pretty simple to login, but I'm having trouble getting at the info inside the username and password boxes.
Here's my panel code...
private function createLoginScreen():void {
     var vb:VBox = new VBox();
     var label:Label = new Label();
     var user:TextInput = new TextInput();
     user.text = "Username";
     user.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, setUsername);
     var pass:TextInput = new TextInput();
     pass.text = "Password";
     pass.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, setPassword);
     var cb:ControlBar = new ControlBar();
     var s:Spacer = new Spacer();
     var b1:Button = new Button();
     s.percentWidth = 100;
     b1.label = "Submit";
     b1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, processLogin);
     cb.addChild(s);
     cb.addChild(b1);
     vb.setStyle("paddingBottom", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingLeft", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingRight", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingTop", 5);
     user.width = 228;
     pass.width = 228;
     vb.addChild(user);
     vb.addChild(pass);
     panel = new Panel();
     panel.title = "Login to the Easy Lead Finder";
     panel.width = 240;
     panel.height = 140;
     panel.addChild(vb);
     panel.addChild(cb);
     PopUpManager.addPopUp(panel, this, true);
     PopUpManager.centerPopUp(panel)
Since this is all done in AS, and inside a function, I can't just do user.text to get the username's text value.
In processLogin, I need access to these so I can check them against a database I have and allow log in.
How can I access these without overly complicated CHANGE text events?

Answer 1

When it's set back to Event.CHANGE, I'm getting this error still.
TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert spark.components::TextInput@be0b479 to flash.text.TextField.
Here's the exact code I'm using.
function setUsername(e:Event){
     trace(TextField(e.currentTarget).text);
private function createLoginScreen():void {
     var vb:VBox = new VBox();
     var label:Label = new Label();
     var user:TextInput = new TextInput();
     user.text = "Username";
     user.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, setUsername);
     var pass:TextInput = new TextInput();
     pass.text = "Password";
     pass.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, setPassword);
     var cb:ControlBar = new ControlBar();
     var s:Spacer = new Spacer();
     var b1:Button = new Button();
     s.percentWidth = 100;
     b1.label = "Submit";
     b1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, processLogin);
     cb.addChild(s);
     cb.addChild(b1);
     vb.setStyle("paddingBottom", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingLeft", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingRight", 5);
     vb.setStyle("paddingTop", 5);
     user.width = 228;
     pass.width = 228;
     vb.addChild(user);
     vb.addChild(pass);
     panel = new Panel();
     panel.title = "Login to the Easy Lead Finder";
     panel.width = 240;
     panel.height = 140;
     panel.addChild(vb);
     panel.addChild(cb);
     PopUpManager.addPopUp(panel, this, true);
     PopUpManager.centerPopUp(panel)