-- it doesn't exist anymore. most of the blue dogs have been defeated. the republican congress is deeply divided between those who continue to bleed in the strong international role for the u.s. and those who believe that defense spending is no different than any other category in the budget and it is useful for negotiations over cutting discretionary spending or entitlement spending. i think we really need to have a debate. period where in a we take it for granted that the u.s. will play this role, that it will have these kinds of treaty alliances. when you look back at our , if bob were here, he

would point out that it is the exception and not the rule. those of us who have been used this, the consensus position has gotten -- about having to make the case for it. i think we need to remedy that and make the case for why we are dividing public goods is vital to the nation's security and its future asperity and to that safety of the world in which we live. >> thank you. each of you has mentioned the impact of the current budget situation and the danger it presents to the ability of the u.s. to carry out its foreign policy. it is also striking that we have

isrd various ways -- it difficult to reconstitute what was once lost. there is a problem. it looks like we will not be able to do all of that. how do we get from here to there? how do we get to where we are to where we want to be? do you want to take that up? >> sure. that i haveiterate that -- the tea party, what those folks do not seem to understand -- and it is not isolation. it is ignorance. america's economic security really depends on stability. stability depends on that u.s.'s

ability to maintain its military capabilities. --t has been these quarterly reports as it were were ever quarter or every no ideaths, you have where the united states will be, it leads people to ask what i have been asking by foreigners from every part of the world -- are you guys crazy? that is not the way to promote stability. to answer your question directly , as long as we have got this madness going on, let's it is sequester ends tomorrow. you still have the cuts. not trivial money. has to be some things done that has not been done. when eric says we have to take him seriously, he is right.

the pentagon has not managed well. there are efforts to manage it well. we have all done our best to manage it well, at the bottom line is that it is not managed well. too many civil servants and to many contractors. an acquisition that is so bad we have set up a new rapid acquisition system to get around our own acquisition system. there is something wrong with that picture. we have defense agencies that are fortune 500 companies that are managed by -- 14 runningagine a gs- exxon mobil? or amazon? the nfl teamsy of except the redskins? [laughter] we have to rethink how we manage budgets.

let's face it, even with cuts, we talk about budgets in access of $400 billion a year. that is a lot of money. it has to be spent well. we have too many the silly these. congress has to do something about brack. we clearly have to get our arms around health care. woody $9 billion a year this year for health care. billion a year for this year for health care. the actuaries say we can save billions right now. there are things we can do. what we shouldn't do -- and i will reiterate what i said before it -- you limit --abilities that we will shoulda contingencynew

a new contingency come that we did not see. comeould a new contingency that we did not see. >> anyone else want to take it up? most of the debate in washington right now with the appropriations, what is the timeline for dod going to be? the problem with the duty budget budget is impacting the top line obviously. in thevery expensive last decade. there is concerned it is not sustainable in the coming decades. work and be affordable. it has to bring in great people.

we had compensate them fairly and provide for the other elements in defense. look at some of the things that are driving costs. on the acquisition side, the google generation needs to get in touch with the boeing and lockheed generation. becomingorms are integration of multiple information systems to run the ship, notify of threat, communicate back to headquarters to receive updated intelligence. as platforms become essentially ,ntegrated, fighting computers with pilots or aviators or operators in control, we have got to bring these generations together. one of them wears white shirts like we do and the other wears

-- and may shave every other day, but they are just as smart and capable. they have lived in these new architectures. we are in a period where the costs of personnel, the cost of the equipment, we cannot continue to maintain those costs drivers. i think the other thing is we need to figure out how we can work across the aisle more regularly on the national security issues. serving in the clinton administration, i had a republican secretary of defense. another was regularly working with the reagan white house i'm a foreign-policy initiatives -- on big foreign-policy initiatives and later with george bush and iraq he freedom

and desert storm in 1991. and deserteedom storm in 1991. the talk in washington has moved from caucus rooms to blogs and talk shows where we focus on the differences rather than our ability to make compromises. me get more to revenue from the energy supply we are developing domestically -- it was also mentioned to me we get more revenue from the energy supply we are developing domestically. those things require that out of workss the with each other. i'm at a loss. maybe the exception was a cold wereore -- cold war years

we had less political fighting. figure how to do things that are not just simply common sense, it also to do things that will be hard to do. -- coalition between military reform in 1986. i will be significant thing that has happened in dod and the last 30 years. tohave got to figure out how work together. no top line in the word -- world is going to satisfy requirements if we do not deal with these costs drivers that are there and present every day. >> yeah. to pick up on both what they said, if you look at the big downturns in defense spending

korea, inld war ii and each instance, we were able to generate considerable savings. the size of the strength of the force had grown considerably in each of those conflicts. , savings could be derived by cutting the size of the army and the air force, etc. what is different about the current situation is over the last 10 years, the strength has increased that much. the expense of the force has. that does mean that rudy is right. we have to get at the embedded costs. it is a microcosm in some sense

of entitlement problem we face as a nation. it would be difficult to do politically. personnel costs over the last decade has grown at 4.2% and adjusted for inflation. if you project that out, i think in 2024, it becomes the entire dod budget. that will not happen obviously. what highlights is the danger of that crowding out of other defense investments and acquisitions and capabilities that we will need in the future. brad talk to lead a bit -- talked a little bit about how we make sure we have the right mix of capability that we want in the future? there is a question of who you trade off current capacity for readiness for future capabilities?

onlyif we are looking at the $500 billion in cuts over 10 years, money has got to come from somewhere. there is a limited number of places where you can generate that from. and the viceel chairman, when they announced the results of the strategic choices in management review back in july, they want to theritize and emphasize feature capability and we are willing to take some risk in current capacity. i think in an ideal world, all of us would say that. i would say that there is a bit of a danger. one of the things we have not talked about as a panel put on make sureas well is as we do this, as we try to

figure out what the feature capability is, number one, all become victims of the belief that the current program of record is necessarily what we need in 20 years. there is a danger that ofeaucratically, elements the department of defense invested in the current program will defend it and that other promising capabilities and technology will be shortchanged in the process. secondly, i think that we have to make sure we do not end up like written between the wars -- wars.n between the we will not go to war over the next 10 years. as doug points out, you do not know if you will go to war or not. the brits folder 10 year rule

forward every year until they got to the late 1930s and decided they needed to rearm in the face of german aggressive policy. by the time they got there, they discovered that there per chairman policy of the 1920s and 1930s had essentially destroyed britain's shipbuilding industry. they were unable to engage in the naval buildup they needed to. note 1945, we got used to talking about or worrying about the impact of defense budgets and cuts. i think we have reached a point where we don't have that anymore. we have to think carefully about what the impact would be certain cuts on the apply chain and the industrial defense base. -- supply chain and industrial defense base. costs tolowing the sub be a driver of what we do, but

it has a was been a driver. the problem is breaking some of these habits that you mentioned. accepting the program of record as of late it will be. ?hat can be done >> i will take a shot at that. i will begin with an attic though. when i came to the reagan -- i will begin with an anecdote. when i came to that reagan administration, there had been an election campaign that focused heavily on defense. i remember meeting with a bunch of two star level folks. the army says it does not matter what your secretary says. i never forgot this. it doesn't matter what your secretary says. he have a five-year defense plan. he is stuck. knows thateveryone

turned out not to be the case. what i am pointing to is leadership. the only way you can affect change in any institution and especially in institution that is as a hierarchy is the pentagon, is from the top. if the commander-in-chief, secretary of defense wanted to change, there would be change. people will salute and do it. do not expect them to do it by themselves. don't expect it to come from the bottom. that is not the way it works. you cannot change that culture. top.s it comes from the over the course of -- guys come in and leave each with a new buzzword.

the staff would repeat the buzzword for the new person to come in with a new organization chart and a new buzzword. and nothing changes eerie what of need is not a secretary defense, but all secretary of defense to be consistent about the changes. if you get that and it does not become a stand to inherit what you're good assessor did and to carry it forward, then you'll get progress. but every time a new person hums in and you toss it all up again and you start all over, you will not get anything done. that is bipartisan. we have talked a lot about names in the united states and in the pentagon on capitol hill at the white house. maybe we should turn our view outward for a moment.

they talked about thing that has become known as a pivot. situation, along with the arab spring, it is not easy to make that pivot. think about that strategy and what it means. well, let me say one observation. the u.s. is increasingly become more energy self-sufficient. when i say independent. i do not think we are ever truly going to be energy independent. we are becoming more self- .ufficient with shale gas i think in some quarters, that has made people think that the

middle east in which we have been heavily invested in for much of the last two and half decades is not important anymore or we can relegate it on the secondary position and we can reallocate our attention. there is no doubt that we need to be spending plenty of time and attention on east asia. i have no doubt about that. of wealth giant flow and economic activity to east asia and the u.s. civic power.been a we have to give more attention to the pacific. i do not think it will be so easy to disengage ourselves from the middle east. p with noe end u residual force in afghanistan, i

think we will still be engaged number one, oil remains a globally traded commodity. the price of oil even if we are not getting a lot of it from the middle east can affect the u.s. economy. it will very much affect our treaty allies in europe and in asia who are still dependent on those sources of hydrocarbon energy. it will be much more difficult. we wrote an op-ed together about the so-called rebalance. one of the things that worries me about the rebalance is is that there has been a little bit more talk than reality to it in the sense that the rebalance if -- look at them military were really talking essentially about a rotational deployment of 2500 marines to darwin,

.ustralia ships home ported in singapore an increase in exercises of the type you have been doing with the philippines. all of which is good, but not sufficient i think to really assuring them that in -- that the u.s. will be able to come to their defense and meet its treaty obligation. on the atlantic to the pacific, it is occurring against the decliningf overall sides of the navy. the net less capability is not too great. i worry a little bit that we should not to be talking a big rebalance, but need to be focused on producing more

changey assets that can that calculation of folks in the western pacific. we start doing the q&a with the audience that is very important, or have to not turn it in view the rebalance of asia. there was a feeling that we thely had neglected asia as americans were very much involved and focused on iraq and afghanistan in the last decade. if we were to look at the u.s. and asia, it is as indispensable as ever. our military alliances have been because ofed in part the tremendous economic role that north korea plays along un. the threat of kim jong

also, our relations with japan muchbeen very reinvigorated. secretary pineda and hagel are making regular visits to their. we have spent some time in an area where we have had spent a lot of time the cousin our courses were employed to the middle east. we have got to look at the rebalance in asia as more than a military strategy. it is a national security foreign-policy strategy. the middle east, as much as we think that there is a path forward, it will demand more attention. goess back to fdr -- it back to fdr. there is a book that talks about the breakup of the colonial era. it was a combination of world andi am definitely --

definitely world war ii. it left them in a very your friend position. there was a tremendous stabilizing influence in the region. ofe of it is the rise radical islam. some of it is a huge and graphic bulge. all of these things make it harder. my first week on capitol hill as a young staffer was 1975. they were publicly in high school in those days. [laughter] this was five years before camp david. it was a huge strategic moment. aligned with the soviet union. when that came, it was a real alignment to the west. it was a critical will the block for the u.s., part of a peace

process that every president has worked to go forward. in november 19 75, the population of egypt was about ready million. very prosperous middle class. tools of how to keep a dynamic middle-class with three times the population that you prior had is a huge challenge of economic strategy reflected could be that there isn't enough jobs for young people in the region, particularly in egypt right now. the u.s. can have a big, stabilizing impact. some have to be solved internally to those countries. i would agree with the ambassador that the u.s. role is going to be important in asia.

we are there in the middle east because we have been the broker how we have helped it out board -- avoid big wars. that is a challenge for the future. >> do you want to take a crack at it? >> no. it is question time. >> what do you see the future for major platforms? >> i think that we have to be judicious about what we get. is a veryange interesting question. there have been questions about manned bombers for strategic forces for a long time. on the other hand, if you move away from nuclear forces come at the long-range bomber might be useful. if you're focusing on the pacific where there are vast ,racts of ocean and uncertainty that make -- might make sense.

the jury is still out. avoiding knee-jerk responses. over defenseates systems that tend to be very stylized. there are ferrier -- fewer carriers or more carriers. we have to be more subtle about what we do and the mixes of capabilities we have. it is different. there are areas where we are clearly ahead of everyone else and we want to make sure we stay that way. on the long-range bombers, you probably want to work on developing them, and how far we go is still to be determined. next 1 -- how involved militarily or be likely to be in the future in africa? you just mentioned egypt.

ambassador, do you want to take that one? probably more than we want to be. again, a panel that we served on years ago identified a number of trends that were going to be important for the nation's defense and future security. one is something that the secretary gates had identified as a problem, which is that security our global that is represented wife rail -- represented by frail states. we have had several instances in africa of this. we had in kenya and reminder of on thellover effect

chronically failed state of somalia and generator for much over the last 20 years. our french allies did a good job molly -- mali. we don't know if we have completely seen the last of the second and third order ofsequences of the success operation odyssey don and the overthrow of the qaddafi regime. there are some energy security issues in africa and in the gulf of guinea and nigeria where the state frailty might have some broad international implications that will be called upon and have the u.s. play a role. not to mention the humanitarian issues or just kind of law and order issues that the search for kony and things i cap.

will be involved in africa much more than -- and rings like that. i suspect we will be involved in africa. to prove that you never know up fightingll end surely after the general became the second commander, he was fighting a war. that is indicative of what we are likely to face there over the next decade. >> here is one from twitter. in a time of budget and continue strategic -- is the time to reduce our nuclear arsenal? i think we need to make smart

decisions about how we deploy all of our forces. the strategic forces have been .ivotal to the best ability the proliferation issue has to be at the top of the list. the countries with nuclear rulens have understood the that if you use a nuclear weapon, it will be catastrophic. holding the spread of those orpons whether it is in iran north korea or other places that we can only guess right now, i think that is the biggest challenge. with respect there is a whole question of follow-up systems and replacement for the marines. in addition to the bomber question that will require a lot of sharpening the pencils to make sure these programs are affordable, i think we know that

some of the programs you can price as pivotal as they may become i think we learned this from secretary cheney during his tenure as secretary of defense that there are some programs where they can cross themselves out and no longer be relevant because you do not get the effectiveness in terms of the same amount if it were spent on ships. i think we need to look at the size of our nuclear arsenal. i think some changes can be made. feelsms of what the u.s. each requirement is, look at that and size the force accordingly. >> i think this is a good question to end on. how do we get back to bipartisan defense? well, since these two guys

spoke about it as well, getting back is not going to be easy. i think that the end of the day, getting back the responsibility of this country, what informed folks like all of you and presumably those who will be watching this, if they care enough to watch it, they are probably reasonably informed. and from people have to put the word out that you cannot mess with defense. you can disagree. you can disagree about how many nuclear weapons you should have carriers to have. those are disagreements that are based on the fundamental acceptance of the fact that the country's prosperity and way of life depend on its national security. has governen what both congress and administration's for 60 years

and certainly for our professional lifetime. it is up to the voters. if voters do not understand us of -- toed all kinds lead them to believe that defense is just another trade off of entitlements or whatever, then we will have a serious problem. they will elect people who believe that same thing. i do not inc. we can afford that. -- think we can afford that. >> there are a lot of folks who in recent years have talked stricterng back to a -- to the constitution. to those folks, in the onetitution, the number

obligation of the federal government is to provide for their common defense. by the way, it is the only obligation that is mandated and not optional for them. they might do other things, but they must provide for the common defense. i think you need to get more that is thederstand primary responsibility. think they have made a good comment. when the truman guys were writing the marshall plan, the later secretary of defense and was one of those pillars of , america'scurity security is rooted in its unique economic strength. as we talk about our defense needs and to provide for the common defense as ambassador

just mentioned, i think that we have got to figure out one comment how to do a budget in washington that we can manage all of the pillars of defense of entitlement and revenues and not make it political every time we have this debate, but also fundamentally look at our own economy to build the next generation. just as we need volunteers to serve in the armed forces, we need young people i can go into the high-tech sector your or into the medical or pharmaceutical or transportation sectors. were college students are graduating with a huge burden of debt that previous generations have not had. we have got to figure out how to get the economy generating jobs for our young americans who have

great skills. leaders will have to work together. done.was a deal president reagan in his social security bill with tip o'neill. both sides had to give. he seemed to have lost that capability in that era -- we have seen to lost that capability in this era. we have to find the area in the middle that we can all work toward. >> i think that is a fine sentiment. do we have a hand for all of our panel? thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> there are lots of stories about slaves and freemen of color who made choices. when i began this book, i was

convinced that americans were the good guys and that the british were the bad guys. the more i worked on this project, i became more convinced that is the war came to an end, it was americans who are not the good guys. it was the dead british and spanish who were the good guys. the british and the spanish offered freedom to their slaves. the man who served with them. took them away from this land of bondage. americansericans, the will keep slaves in bondage until 1865. saturday night at 9 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c- span 3. c-span, we bring public

affair events directly to you, and you in the room with congressional hearings, white house events, and offering complete gavel coverage of the u.s. house all as a public service of private industry. c-span, created by the cable tv industry and funded your local cable or satellite providers. you can watch us in hd. a house hearing, officials from the u.s. army, navy, air force, and marines testified of how that offense budget restraints are effect military readiness. this is about two hours. >> the hearing subcommittee will come to order. good afternoon. the tactical air and land forces committee meets today in open session to be seek testimony military of the four

services on the impact of sequestration and continuing resolution known as cr. for over two years, this committee has held numerous hearings on the impact of sequestration to our national security and attempts to try to capture some of the decision- making and that affects on our national security. we have warned of the catastrophic impacts it would have if allowed to continue. devastating.an be it's an sequestration began, we have seen dramatic effects on military force readiness such as the grounding of squadrons and squadrons andther training exercises reduced and programs curtailed and furloughs of the department of defense civilians. in my district alone, we saw the furlough of roughly 12,000 hard- working men and women. if left unchecked, it it appears

that many boys could lose their jobs permanently. many individuals work in the community and are linked to the air force modernization. there are accounts for procurement and research and development acquisition programs. thus far, the effect on the investment account has been much less apparent, but we believe this to be a false sense of security. if sequestration continues, dod investment will be intact in -- impacted. grow inexpected to fiscal years 2015. this hearing will focus on those impacts. the government accountability office has reported to the subcommittee that approximately 80% of sequestered funding for investment account has been andn from prior year

obligated funds. additionally, some funding requirements for fiscal year 2013 have been pushing to fiscal year 2014, creating must pay bills during this fiscal year. these actions have allowed the government to delay the affects of sequestration on affection -- in back -- investment. the situation will be different. although sequestration is an approximate 9% decrease, the military pay and would've boys program will not be subject to sequestration decreases -- and ors program am not be subject to sequestration decreases. this means that investment accounts are likely to see an approximate 40% decrease in fiscal year 2014. if this continues, the combined impacts will continue to increase and affecting every acquisition program and severely

andcting future readiness leaving the possible program terminations. testimony received about the near and long-term affect sequestration will have on the total force. the remarks are sobering. today expect to hear a clear terms how modernization will be impacted should sequestration continued. need to provide better clarity and help make the case to congress as to why sequestration needs to be fixed. welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses. we have the beginning of our panel. we have lieutenant general james. have mr. shawn stackley. deputy chief of naval

operations. walters.ieutenant lieutenant general thank you all of you for being here. this is not something that should be sugarcoated. these impacts are real. they need to be avoided. theear that -- the story in government defense has not been told. you have been busy trying to implement sequestration and minimize its overall effects. today you have the opportunity to paint a clear picture to us in trying to protect our national security in difficult circumstances.

that is what will be important. on howre people working to complete the budget for fiscal year 2014. that requires that you star be clear and unequivocal at the dangerous and damaging effects to our national security. i appreciate the message you have for us. i will turn to ms. sanchez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you hamed madam, and gentlemen. -- thank you, madam, and gentlemen. i'm happy that the department of defense could be here with us. and that you're willing to testify before us today.

we have been moving forward. this is not a normal year. and aly with the shutdown frustration with the senate not bringing its bill yet to the floor of the senate, we are definitely in a very strange time. i appreciate you became here. we have passed our authorizing bill. we hope that we will get a senate version two conference in. must be difficult for you all to try to figure out what programs move forward and what doesn't and what is placed on hold. in particular, it is a little striking that we would have a report that would say that the the line,t we have on

the data point on the line is telling us that the department of defense -- not a lot happened for fiscal year 2013. lot -- first year, not a you know. there were many fears we heard for a year that something terrible would happen to acquiring equipment we we need, .tc., for the dod the report says that is not the case. i would have to say that probably is because there was a or leftoverams money or programs that did not come to be or were not there. in other words, a lot of slack in the system. maybe that is one of the reasons

why we do not see what we had thought we would see. slack inhere so much the whole program? but i am worried about -- and i know this is about forward thinking and what will happen in the second year of sequestration and what will happen if we have a third and fourth year. this is a ten-year sequestration effort. i hope we concentrate on what this really means for dod and what we will see. -- i saw when i went out and visited other arenas, what it meant for trainees. i was in nevada. i went to air shows.

there used to flying 200 plus shows and they flew one so far in this past season. i have seen what has happened to training ofg and our soldiers and airmen and seamen, etc., marines. says nothing has happened in the acquisitions arena. i think it is important to know what happened. i hope you will be pretty straightforward with us and talk about your concerns with respect to that. mr. chairman, i will put my official statement on the record . i'm very interested to hear from you all on what you think as we move forward and how this will affect the major programs.

thank you. will submit my whole statement for the record and move forward. >> thank you. he can opening statements. -- begin opening statements. madam secretary. distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify before you in providing comments regarding impacts associated with the continued resolution and sequestration on the army nd the industrial -- joining me today is lieutenant james barkley -- barclay. and impact to the army acquisition programs and -- the instability

hampers our ability to plan and execute acquisition programs in support of -- testing and production to these -- activities are subjected to limited funds under cr and are disrupted by the shutdown. with continuing resolution the lack of authority start new programs or increase production quantities, sequestration alreadyns in fy-13 reduced or eliminated margin for error on many of our programs. with efforts to medicate the ,mpacts using prior year funds it would directly result in reduced quantities and deferred investment in new capabilities

and delays in many programs. , civilian freeze furloughs, government shutdown decimates our current and future and haveo recruit expertise in the government workforce. impact to devastating our projects -- creates devastating impact to our projects, contracting, logistics, and maintenance. the long-term effects of this instability is yet to be fully discerned. we know that the combined effects of sequestration and yearly cr would significantly increase the costs of our -- constrained budgets will lead to reduced investment in new soldier capabilities at a time when we must prevent erosion of our technological edge.

researcht in army programs face alarming prospect of the nearly 40% reduction over a three-year span. it is reaching a historical low. rda takes the brunt of the hit. especially in the short term. unprecedentedan challenge in staying on track to develop the next generation of capability to our soldiers to counter emerging threats. many programs are affected by cr limitations. fx thatn, we can see

as procurement of 12 fewer fewer helicopters and 11 -- helicopters, delays in upgrades, engineering to a tank, and fighting vehicles. --ered five- -- 45-50 by 6 months.et newo 120 new brands for basic research and universities across the united states might be cut. up to 40 existing third year grants might he cut -- be cut. -- meet with ceos and industrial leaders, i hear

about the shoe desire for stability. the untold effects of investment among large corporations remains one of the most significant risk associated with the current fiscal environment. there are also significant human capital costs, our capacity to maintain expert piece in science and technology, engineering, cost estimation, logistics, are all at risk. the stability has been undermined. these skills are critical to -- directly affecting our programs. these examples provide a snapshot of the relative effects of the fiscal instability.

the current environment fundamentally challenges our ability to manage public resources in a prudent manner while upholding the respectability to provide the best equipment. mr. chairman, mr. sanchez and other members, thank you for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to address the impacts of the fiscal year 2014 continuing resolution and sequestration on the department of vet modernization. -- of the modernization. is mr. myers and lieutenant walters. half of our fleet is underway. nimitzips including

and boxer and other groups and marines are deployed around the world. from ground operations in afghanistan to maritime security , to missile defense in the mediterranean and the sea of strategic recon, from deterrence and deterring enemies and responding to crises and having naval forces providing -- the place in the hands of our nations leaders tools and options to respond to today's world events and shape future events. the department of the navy's 2014 budget request has forces required needed to meet these missions.

we provide the investment costs by the defense strategic advice -- advisment. -- advisement. today we are here to discuss the unfinished work for the defense authorization bill and defense appropriations bill and then the consequences that sequestration poses to operations, cap abilities, readiness of current and future. the navy and marine corps budget authorized by the armed services committee is severely undercut by the limitations of the continuing resolution and across-the-board cuts posed a sequestration. operation and maintenance are particularly hard hit such that as you described in your opening remarks approximate 10% cut to that 2014 budget would equate to a 14% reduction to those

accounts due to military personnel exemptions. these reductions in 2014 would be adding to the $11 billion sequester in 2013. balances,eting prior removing reserves and deferring significant bills to future year budgets, ultimately resulted in canceled deployments , deferred maintenance, delays to development schedules and reductions to procurement quantities. term, thein the near navy and marine corps will prioritize the global presence requirements set for the force. to searched ability additional forces. depot maintenance affecting greater than half of our shipyards. this missed maintenance will impact these ships' readiness or future deployments as well as their expected service life.

flight hours and maintenance and the procurement of spare parts impacting next year's operations and our ability to search our forces. maintaining current readiness to the extent possible under sequestration comes at expense to our investment in each are readiness. , absent congressional action or mitigating circumstances, the continuing resolution and sequestration would cause cancel procurement up to three major warships and 25 aircraft. various utility training and unmanned aircraft. to this total, about 400 missiles and weapons at risk, cutting our inventory at a time

when we are striving to restore our weapons to levels called for. the impact of the continuing resolution and sequestration denies the ability this committee authorized for 60,nced hawkeye, the mh destroyers, submarines and missiles. it places at risk greater than $5 billion savings. which todayforce falls below the statutory requirement for 11 carriers will be greatly impacted with a risk of halting construction of our newest carrier, delaying construction and delaying the refueling complex overhaul. this outcome, we must avoid. beyond these impacts, virtually every navy and marine corps development comprising those advanced capabilities that are critical to ensuring superiority

, air and missile defense radar, navy integrated fire control, thatinders, amphibious con , every majordar development suffers delay or reduction or cancellation. uncertainty seemingly got every decision. we need to consider the impacts on our industrial base and acquisition workforce which we rely upon to develop and to deliver these systems that underpin military superiority. we need to be mindful that as many as 100,000 jobs are at risk as a result of potential cuts to navy marine corps operations. skilled workers and engineering talent across government and -- the same professionals who have been bearing great stress while

performing their critical jobs in the face of furloughs and layoffs triggered by distortion of this budget process which congress has otherwise faithfully executed in prior years. these examples do not capture the full magnitude and they do not begin to approach the impact of subsequent reductions. willted, the reductions profoundly affect the size and shape and readiness of your navy and marine corps. again, i think this committee for his work on 2014 operations. our appeal is the congress complete its work on the 2014 budget request with a passage of the authorizations and appropriations bills and that this mechanism for addressing the nation's budget impasse somehow be reversed before we are driven to your over civil action's which impair -- irreversible actions which impair our defense. >> thank you. i just want to point out,

because we are in a house hearing, the house has passed defense appropriations which are sitting in the senate. ushough congress, in order to congregate together, must complete it together, the house has done all of its work. we are continuing to be in this period where the house does it work and we wait for the senate. that period of uncertainty makes it difficult for us. i understand your frustration. there are bills that are sitting there for action. >> thank you, chairman. thank you for holding this hearing to discuss the state of affairs with sequestration. i will address the air force. i am joined by lieutenant .eneral mike marler -- moeller thank you rolling this hearing. we are committed to remaining the best in the world.

that means being able to fight and win against pure adversaries. in the middle of trying to make sure we meet that future and keep readiness high, we have had to deal with the sequester. when the sequester hit back in february, it was well known that there were only two places in the budget to find the dollars to match what was needed to be cut. one was an operations -- essentially hitting a readiness. that also hit our workforce with the furloughs. the second place is our investment. with our investment accounts looking at somewhere between 10% and 11% cuts. flexibilitiesing to soft and that to about eight percent. i should make the mistake. there is damage being done. i'm going to talk about the investment situation and what is going on there.

to begin with, what was done was each program was scrubbed. commitmentsk money, for next year, were taken, swept up. there was a promise that some of it would be returned. what also was done was, major programs were simply stopped. i can speak to one specifically that we have been public about. fors an air force program space situational awareness. theere ready to award contract after a lot of excellent work by contractors and laboratories. i had a great acquisition strategy. we stopped. we stopped the program. it may or may not get started. if it does, it is going to be one year away from -- but it is going to cost $70 million for the same program one year later. there will be other programs coming along that are going to be in exactly the same situation. we have the furloughs. i will talk about the effect on

morale which is harder to assess. there was absolutely an affect on our acquisition programs. the f 35 lost one to two months of scheduling due to the furloughs. the reason was the testing. it was prohibited to test on overtime with civilians. if you have been around testing, nothing gets done in a regular 40 hour week. it directly impacted our acquisition programs. the effect on the morale is something that is harder to measure. we won't know until probably it is too late. the lagging indicator is usually turn over. my instinct is purely anecdotal. that is based on individual resignations that have already occurred. withieve we have broken the younger acquisition and science workforce. these are folks who were at a point in their career trying to make a decision, is this

something i can do for my full career? is this something that is reliable? particularly the highly talented and marketable ones, they are very vulnerable. we have cases of resignations. that was before october 1. the first week of october, half of the peo's in the air force, program executive officers, senior acquisition executives were home. ofwere within about two days shutting down the f 35. i know that these are differences between sequester versus government shutdown. the effect in the field is not terribly distinctive to the individuals in the programs. about 14, where we are right now, the numbers have been already mentioned. that4% number, the number could be higher depending on what flexibility is there. i will also say, there will be

other mentions of programs that will be canceled or delayed. in addition to that, entire fleet of aircraft are on the table for consideration of the investment -- divestment by the leadership. i can't say which programs are going to be stopped. the math in 15 and 16 is that bad. the final comment i will make, as we mentioned in 13 there was some flexibility. we were able to transfer some of that money to the operations accounts to soft and readiness. that is gone. 13, f 35 was at risk of losing three airplanes. deede realm of no good goes unpunished, the f 35 program was able to negotiate every good price and essentially buy back those three airplanes.

we don't have an opportunity to do that and 14. we will lose between four and five airplanes and 14. i could go through other programs. that is a summary of the severity of the situation within the air force. withk forward to working the subcommittee and answering your questions. thank you very much. >> thank you. u, i have enjoyed the opportunity to work with you. i appreciate your concern. could you speak specifically, if sequestration is allowed to continue, what kind of impact program? have on the and also, as far as modernization acquisition, speak briefly on the forecast if we can curtail what is happening here. >> it currently is a great model program. each of the three contractors

have delivered 22 vehicles and they are currently in test. the government shutdown has impacted our testing plant. civilians who do the vast majority of our testing can't travel to the test site. they don't have money. affect of this government shutdown, just a short period of government shutdown, is starting to stretch out the program. we have to get back into the queue to do the testing. testing -- usually our testers do more than eight hours per day. if you limit their number of hours, it is going to impact them. program is very well executed. we are trying to get back on schedule. sequestration, cutting the

account heavier than the rest of the accounts, cutting the research and development acquisition accounts disproportionately higher than the other accounts, it will have impacts to us in terms of schedule. we could potentially delay the program by a year. >> i appreciate that. general walters or mr. stokley, would you like to address that? the developmental schedule is going to slide to the right. that is going to hold off when we can get into production. conservativer is a estimate in terms of that impact. it is going to impact each year of production. when you're trying to climb up a ramp and get to efficient quantities, the front and will be suppressed in terms of the number of vehicles we can procure. that is going to stretch the program out and drive the cost up.

impactse all spiraling that take a strong performing program at the front and and resorts -- front end and revert its course. >> general walters. sentiments already displayed here. i will also tell you that the longer-term effect year-by-year as sequestration marches on, if it continues to march it will put us in a more difficult position of making harder aoices as we try and buy out vehicle portfolio that will become unaffordable. >> thank you. representative cooper. >> thank you, madam chair. chairman turner said earlier that the house had done its work and was implying that is was the senate awesome thought. we need to operate -- senate's

fuault. we need to operate as a congress. i thought your testimony was excellent. i wish you had the ability to question us. the fault is on our side of the deus. i will make some points on my own about the house's and congress's inability to perform adequately in these trying times. as one of the witnesses noticed, since contractors and workers don't really distinguish between , this is and shut down a nightmare that they should not have to go through and a nightmare the country should not have to go through. let me cite a couple of articles. one is "politico." hawks suddenly silent on sequestration. an article that cites the excellent study by the bipartisan policy center entitled "the sequester: from

dangerous."tupid to an article in "the wall street journal." the upside of the gop shutdown the feet, he points out "saving the sequester has been the top priority for me and my republican colleagues throughout the debate. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said, the survival of the sequester wasn't a win for republicans. the automatic cuts take a huge bite out of pentagon spending which is bound to weaken military readiness. this has distressed many republicans and rightly so. say, moste goes on to republicans have been willing to swallow the defense cuts. they regard the sequester as a rare victory in their fight to reduce the size of government. says, treasury

secretary jack lew made a catastrophic miscalculation. he believed a defense hawk republicans would never agree to the sequester cuts. the white house that the republicans would raise taxes before cutting military spending. they were wrong. house republicans rightly decided that as the wars in afghanistan and iraq were winding down, defense would be cut under any scenario. it made the most strategic sense to uphold the sequester to ensure that the peace dividend did not get spent elsewhere. as i mentioned, it is our fault. congress should be blamed. in my opinion, the house in particular. it is not enough to pass legislation. we have to conference it with the senate. both houses finally passed budgets this year. only this week did we do a

conference on the budget. begging,e years of then we refused to conference it with them. "the wall street journal" pointed out, you can't govern america with one half of one branch of government. it takes more than that. it takes cooperation. it takes that dreaded word compromise. i am proud of the work that you gentlemen and ladies are doing. are under that you this distressed. i hope and pray that congress will get its act together fast. we only have a few days before the budget conference is supposed to come up with a conclusion. we are only meeting next week one or two days. we take the following week after that off. --hink the entire conference the hope of compromise only has a few possible days to come up with an agreement. that is appalling.

the folks back home are expecting us to work 24/7, 365 to get this done. they should be outraged that we haven't done it already. the fiscal year started october 1. this is a time for this body to get its act together. the armed services committee is the largest committee in the house of representatives. we don't act like it. we don't exercise i commence your influence within the body. in this hearing, how many people are here? six? this is just a subcommittee, not the full committee. this is an embarrassing response to a national crisis that you gentlemen and ladies are correctly informing us of. maybe one day, you will have the right to question the side of the deus. i look forward to that. in the meantime, we should be punished for congressional misbehavior. both houses, both parties until we get the job done. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, madam chair.

my question is going to be for general moeller. i have been a big supporter of the new tanker. there has been some questions dealing with -- if you don't represent these coast. that being the workhorse of most of the refueling on the east coast and dealing with homeland security. with a new tanker coming online slower than expected, obviously because of many things we are discussing today, the fact that there is probably really not much of a decrease in how we use those aircraft here and if there is a delay in the 46 coming online, for the record, what is

the air force's plan for this critical platform? tothere program funding support this asset? opportunity for the to talk to you. before i talk specifically about platforms, let me just say that the blunt mechanism of sequestration drove us to look at all options from across the air force. said, looking at a readiness account, our personal account, we had to look everywhere in order to get billions of dollars in savings. especially in the near years. that is where sequestration drives the biggest cuts for us, for all of us. lookedat in mind, as we

at where we were going to go together the savings required to balance the program, we had to look at cutting entire fleet of aircraft. had --son why is that we in order to get the billions of dollars needed, we had to go after overhead as much as we did. the cuts that we are talking about across -- are for the air force specifically. ,ight now under sequestration it would be over 25,000 people. over 550 aircraft. that is the magnitude of the challenge that we face. specifically, because all of our 19 program is producing all, we can't talk about specific platforms. i will tell you that we looked

avoidingty order at further readiness degradation. that was our top priority especially in the near years. cutting the more capable aircraft and/or doing irreversible damage to high- priority investment programs. >> it is just puzzling to me. aboutwhat you're saying needing to find places to cut that stuff. hole thatess poll -- i think it would create, i have yet to find someone to give me an answer about how you back for that. with the 46 been delayed, it could be a huge problem. if you're going to take out a whole air wing that supplies critical refueling, how do you fill that gap?

congressman, we will have gaps across the entire air force. it is not just one platform. sequestration, the levels of cuts require us to look across the air force. mitigating risk in one area is going to require offsets of others. the bottom line is that the air force, after sequestration, is going to be smaller, less capable, less ready and less flexible. at the end of the day, that is the bottom line of the effect of sequestration. i would've to personally sit down with you and have the numbers put out on the table and talk about it. i yield back. >> thank you. jackie forhank sitting in while at the opportunity to pretend a briefing for a few moments. i appreciate her taking the

gavel for me. now we return to regular order. regular order is such that we go through each of the members who and turned to those posed gavel. it when people make an issue part of something. nothing is describable or resolvable in its real effects on a partisan basis. rarely will you hear anybody and a new microphone say the democrats or republicans. we're all just working together on the same issue. when you look at the number of members present, we have on the side of the aisle a great deal of attention on this as we have had at the number of hearings we have had. basis, mytisan ranking member and i have both work equally diligently on this one, one being a purple can the one being a democrat.

i voted against sequestration. i voted against it because i felt that the administration did not have a commitment to resolving sequestration. when we talk about resolving, we talk about funding offsets elsewhere in the budget. we have taken over half of the budget of the allocated cuts and applied it to less than 18% of the overall budget. that the president had charged congress with was issue, cuts in this elsewhere in the budget to offset those. when people talk about, they want sequestration to be applied -- there are members who openly say that -- they are not saying they want this to be supplied -- applied to the department of defense. believes thatress

the department of defense should continue to be subject to sequestration. it is irresponsible for any memberto say that any should be subject to sequestration. there are members who believe that we cannot continue to spend out of control and sequestration needs to be addressed by the process concluding. for the budgetd control act and sequestration who then speak about it disparagingly is one i also think is a question. i am proud of the fact that i opposed it. i oppose it now. i want to turn to your answers cts.o its affect -- effet there are many people who would like to categorize it otherwise. you can help us characterize it as a real problem. shyu, you said that

the issue of uncertainty is wrecking the ability for both the department of defense and the industrial base. you said that they need predictability. we also haveard, , the aggregate numbers and what their effects will be upon the choices that you have to make. could you speak of the fact that these numbers themselves are so egregious that many of the tasks are not been assigned going to be able to be achievable and could harm our long-term sustainability in national security? >> yes. excuse me.

will havetration significant impacts. as we talked about earlier, we don't have any more buffer room left. we are going to defer maintenance on 172 of our aircraft. more than 900 of our vehicles. over 2000 of our weapon systems. over 10,000 pieces of communication equipment. equipment to less our brigade combat teams. it will impact our production. fewer aircraft. a less apache helicopters. -- eight less apache helicopters. the reduction of from fy 13. this means it will have a rippling effect in terms of

field into our units. upgrades that we are going to be impacted. terms of that mean in rippling effect? it means our contractors are looking for stability. the contracts that they have can no longer plan for it. me, whatinuously asked do i anticipate the budget is going to be so they can plan for their workforce. it is difficult to give them any numbers because we are planning at different levels. have various different impacts. the other rippling affect it has created for us is the enormous amount of additional work for our internal government folks to

plan they "what if" contingencies. when multiple iterations of planning -- that is very disruptive. anythingd, if there is that this congress can do to help us in terms of stopping sequestration and bringing back stability in our budget, that is the one key critical thing that we need. not just for the army, but for our industrial base as well. did you want to add? said, across all , we areerent categories going to have dramatic impacts on both readiness, training and modernization programs. as we look at both of those categories, there is a large impact on canceling training rotations.

not only are we not reducing the numbers that we are purchasing, we have gone away from the new buys and we are remanufacturing those platforms. we are not seeing new platforms. in an effort to meet the dollar cuts, we are doing that across the fleet. both ingram, vehicles and in aviation. long termhave a impact on us as we move forward. >> i don't want to repeat the theme but the theme is the same. , first,ould add is stability is critical to performance in our programs across the board. what we have an experienced -- and experiencing has been extraordinary destabilizing. there is a certain budget environment that we are marching through. it is unraveling.

all those programs underpin current and future readiness. , as theigher level commandant testified, what sequestration poses is a steady decline across the board in terms of operations, readiness, force structure which ultimately equates to presence, response and national security. we're on the front end of that today. 2013, we saw the clements being canceled. delays toing programs. when you compound that year- not a straights line. it will quickly devolve. the 300 ship navy we require to meet our strategic defense guidance -- we are staring today

a potentially a navy of 250 ships in number. areircraft carriers jeopardized to drop down to numbers of 10 and nine. towards thees nation's defense. >> i agree with the theme. start with something dr. paul kaminski talked about in the 90's. or morestability importantly instability was one of the principal causes. the implication being offering that stability to the extent we can. perspective,ers taking a longer-term view beyond six months, beyond three months, done correctly buying complex weapon systems is smarter.

contracts done correctly are usually much better for the taxpayer than single year cap tracks -- contract. contractass. long-term efforts of looking at how with the contractors we can bring down the operations costs -- all of that is better off in an environment where we have some idea. we understand things change. idea on what the situation is. all that is put at risk by the situation we are in right now. contracts that we put in place two years ago for the highest priority programs when we had no idea we would -- that the situation we're in today, that those contracts are put in risk. two weeks ago, we had one of our fixed-price contracts come within 24 hours of a major

problem until the president signed a continuing resolution. we could have broken one of our fixed-price contracts. that is how it works. is so important to us. we recognize the fact that things change. we have to do better than where we are right now. thank you. understanding, i hate it when people make issues partisan. it impedes our ability to get things done. it is my understanding that mr. cooper made the statement that there are republicans who want sequestration to continue. i have to ask you, you have been up here talking to congress members of congress. trying to tell them the effects of its immediacy. have you ever had democrat or republican, a member of congress say to you that sequestration should remain intact?

no. not one democrat, not one republican. i want to make that point as we try to avoid people turning this into partisan. i'm going to go to ms. roby. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i should take this opportunity to tell each of you, thank you for your service to our country. and to your families. that means a lot to all of us here. touched on what i was going to ask to general mark lay -- barclay. as it relates to overall priorities, but also from a development standpoint. i would defer to the two of you to determine who is best to answer mina's question. -- my next question.

mentioned in your written testimony that the program would be placed at risk. can you elaborate on that as to whether it remains a priority and to what extent the sequester may impact the army acquisition strategy of maintaining competition to reduce the risk and the cost? >> the program is very important to the army because it offers significant capabilities that we currently don't have, namely 25% fuel efficiency as an example. we very much would like to have competition on all of our programs. continues, weon may be forced to down select earlier than we would like. that is the risk of

sequestration. i would like to give an example. that is what happened on another program. joint air to ground missile programs. it was a $33 million mark. then a $3 million sequestration on top of that. there was a $36 million cut. we were forced to drop one of the contractors. we were forced because of the budget. critical not only because of fuel savings, it also has maintenance savings. it is key to our developmental programs. we are working to get that into the current platforms of black hawk and apache. it is also toyed -- tied to other aircraft. sequestration places this program at risk. and it appears coulde will, that program

be put at risk because it is tied to other programs. all this links together. minutewe talk for just a about the impact on modernization of army aviation and specifically, how that is going to impact the army aviation in fort rucker? as it relates to the sequester? >> yes, ma'am. it is in your district. it is not only just sequestration. it is the continuing resolution -- it already has had an impact. for theker was working aviation force. this past year, they have dropped below 1200. we are looking to good -- to go

below a thousand students because of the college rate. hard to get the student backlog down to a manageable level. we are now back over 500 students in the backlog. problemabout a two-year to get that back. it will only continue to grow as we move forward. from the training aspect, that has an impact. the other part of that is, as we look at the aviation portfolio thernization program, training helicopter was one of those aircraft we were looking at having replaced. part of our look at the future to determine what we can afford and if we will still be able to incorporate that into our future buys and programs. this is the point that we want to emphasize. let's talk about how those

numbers and the decrease in aviation pilots in the air force and army affects our readiness and ability to do what we need to do. if you could just quickly .omment on that it is what keeps me up at night. >> it is in the navy, the air force, we are restricting all of their flight hours. we are only focusing on those combat aviation brigade's that are getting ready to the playback into afghanistan. hours toeduced flight where they are not at the proficiency level. we are barely maintaining currency levels. in some areas, as night vision togles, we are not able maintain that currency. that has a huge impact on the

training readiness of those units. .> my time has expired i know it affects every person here in your position. it is something that we absolutely have to address, not just in the committee but as a congress. demonstrates exactly where we are going to be. thank you all for being here today. thank you for your service. i just want to note that our military officers will be given a chance to give a closing. , ifr their closing comments any of the secretaries have additional thoughts, they will be given that opportunity. hopefully our questions will be directed and alyssa list of the types of information you give us. in case not, you will have that opportunity at the end. >> this subcommittee has to take -- i know you have seen

that. no weapons systems programs were canceled and no programs reported canceling or severely changing program contracts. osd officials agreed with this assessment. that kind of contradicts what dod was telling us what happened under sequestration. we were told that the impact would be significant, dramatic, immediate. that we basically avoided disaster in fiscal year 2013. my first question, and you can just say yes or no, do you agree with the assessment that no weapons systems programs were canceled and no programs

reported canceling or severely changing program contracts? >> yes. not fully read the program. i want to comment on that. >> i would say that every program was impacted. yearre able to use prior to absorb some of the impact. frankly, the department of the navy had to push a significant amount of that impact. the impact is still staring at us across the board in the same programs. did we canceling? no. our priority was not to cancel and create more harm. sta concur with secretary ckley. what you didn't see was the ability of the services to use unobligated investment funds. earmarked orere

identified for each investment. we still have to reconcile. we still have to pay those bills. we were able to make good decisions in the near term. the services are always looking for an opportunity for reversibility. that thehope inflexibility of the sequester can be remedied by congress. agree with my mates here. i will tell you that every program we had in the marine corps was affected either by quantity or schedule. we also think the sequester in 13 has set the conditions to cancel programs in 14 depending on how the budget -- >> but i am asking about the report itself.

canceled, no programs were ordered canceling. is that correct? those people agreed. >> i am at a loss because i haven't read the report. i don't know if the destination -- what the definition of severe is. >> i don't know if they talked to any of the service components at all. >> thank you. >> that could well be correct. works isy, the way it the step to cancellation is delaying. that has already started. i am not saying the program will be canceled. programjor air force has been put on hold. contractors were told to stop work. is that canceled? no. >> that is what we are having this hearing about.

we get one report but we want to get the truth here. beenthink you have indicating you have not had an opportunity to fully review the report. some of you have not even seen it. have you seen it at all? has anyone on the panel seen the report? >> and i won't ask that question. >> let's provide you the report and leave this record open for you to give an opportunity and answer in our record. >> perfect. the air force -- you stated previously that it would do whatever it takes to protect your top three acquisition programs. assuming you would get reprogramming authority in a timely manner which this committee somewhat controls, do you think you could protect those programs fully in fiscal year 2014? >> i will get an answer for that. of those three programs, the two in general that are at biggest

risk depending on the scenario f 35 and kc 46. let's address each one had signed. doing anywithout release, we are at risk of about four to five airplanes this next year. we will not have the opportunity to take advantage of another great negotiation to buy them back. we won't have that. with some flexibility, that can be mitigated to some extent. part that we have to really pay attention to, which is beyond 14 but it is really important, is dishing the development program. the marines -- the air force,

roughly 17. that is critical. anything we do that will prevent us from protecting that the government program is bad. can we protect it? i am hopeful we could. tanker, if we the are not given flexibility and it comes out to be like a 13.5% cut like we said, that is a problem. the tanker is one of those fixed price contracts that the government has a very good arrangement with. there was a lot of excellent work after a lot of difficult lessons. >> if you could reprogram to save your top three, do you think you could do it? >> i think we could likely save those two that i am worried about with the following caveat. what that means for every other program -- >> that was my next question. >> the numbers shoot up. cutting the other programs i

would say close to 30%. >> what are the other big program that you think would fall by the wayside? where we get to the discussion of everything being on the table. the types of dollars that one would have to find our only him -- in the large platforms. discussions ofat not starting new programs. if you look at the air force plan and say, assume that that is at risk. it is all on the table. >> a quick question on that. i am very interested. development oft the software with f 35. is that because of concurrence? >> no, that is separate. >> so software doesn't have anything to do with the fact that -- yes or no.

yes or no with respect to concurrence. we are building this in a different manner. for the future, i need to know. are we running into problems? are you worried about development? >> concurrence is not driving that issue. >> ok. the last question i have has to do with the army. the testimony lays out a range cutrograms which will be because of sequestration. think that is probably unacceptable. i am thinking about the fact that i keep reading articles all monthlies and dailies and weeklies, where press reports keep telling us that the active- duty army will be down to 400 wendy thousand and 2019. -- 420,000 by 2019.

that is a smaller army than we have today. it is done fairly quickly. given this rapid decline in force structure, how has the army adjusted its procurement requirements and to your comments today take into account the reductions that people are projecting? >> first of all, we started as an army of 570,000. we're going to an army of 490,000 by 17. under sequestration, we know that we cannot support an army -- we can't afford to pay for it, we can't afford to train it and we can't afford to equip it with sequestration.

we are looking at the impact of sequestration and where we will have to take the army down to. there are numbers that range 380 two aboutfrom a 450 number. our chief and secretary have talked about those scenarios faced on how we look at the plans, how we balance between readiness. we balance between modernization and there is still a lot of -- >> so refresh my memory. before we got into the two land wars of afghanistan and iraq, what was the active number in the army? >> 482,000. >> so you were thinking you were going to come down to 490. even more than you had when we got into two major wars. what does this have to do with the fact that the army is actually taking a look at other budget issues?

>> i would say lsd is taking a look at sequestration. osd is taking a look at sequestration. we're all coming back to look at how we address those sequestration cuts that are being given to the services. we are manpower-intensive. we are about people. we are a land force. >> i know that. my husband spent 23 years in the army. >> about 40% of your budget goes against paying the bill for the manpower. that is part of our equation to get to where we need to go. we are going cap to take the force structure down. it is all components. active component, national guard and reserve. they all take proportional cuts. we have no choice but to do that. accounttaken that into as we are looking at all of

these different programs. ,hanging the quantities modernization impacts, different levels of where we are.be -- we >> perfect. thank you for your answer. >> thank you, mr. chairman. cuts because of the sequester and everything else -- i have heard a few of the comments. significant impacts and other things. we have had other hearings. heard summary us startling information. basically, we were not combat ready to meet our current military contingencies. be paraphrasing that

incorrectly. i know that specific question to all theed different armed services. i think the chair was there. he can correct me if my memory fails me. my point -- the question i am leading up to, what you have leads to ait almost c4rmanency for -- permanent or a permanent declaration that each one of our armed services will not be combat ready in the near future, 10 years? this is very very scary. comment one you to what i was saying. a lot of the things with the sequester, i don't think the average person understands it. wherenderstand something

our armed forces are not prepared or combat ready to go to war or military situations where young men and women could die. resonates at least in my opinion, to me, to my district. if you could comment on where i am going with this -- obviously, i am not a big fan of the sequester. particularly in regards to dod and national security. >> from an army perspective, i will tell you i can break it down into a couple of categories. on the equipment side, you run them from the cr impact to the sequestration impact and the future budget impacts. we are putting soldiers at risk with a new start program for

protection against ied's. we can't start that. there is no new start. providingimpact on something that we want to start for soldiers in the fight now. the delays that result from this -- trying to get that third striker organization so we can get in for the last part of the fight. delaying has an impact. missiles, we will have four units that we will not have that for because of this. we talked about the engine. it is going to the sink some programs that we are trying to attach to future programs which deal with network modernization. we're going to have to slow that down. now fielding only to

those combat teams going into theater. that has a training impact. on the readiness side, we have thatfied that the fact those units that are going into the war are the only one that we are training to the fullest level. those are the ones that teamsher brigade combat are not getting the opportunity because we don't have the money to send them in. as a continue to move forward, readiness levels continue to come down from c3 to c2. they continue to degrade down to because we do not have the funding to train them to the highest readiness levels. >> thank you for the question. part and parcel similar to chairman turner tossed question