ptsd, of service members coming home. that raises serious concern to me. i would like to see if he see barriers to care here. >> if i could, i think we're doing a good job of increasing behavior health for active forces and try to get more access to -- my concern i think is where you're headed with this, and i agree with you is for family members because, frankly, it is even under tri-care, it is difficult to always get care covered for behavioral health under tri-care for our family members. sometimes it's accepted. sometimes it's not. the behavior health care needs to deal with that because of the affect the war has had on our families and specifically our children. i know in specific cases where a lot of out of pocket expenses is being spent because it's not

covered or there's a co-pay because they don't recognize certain treatments or they don't recognize, so in my mind this is something we have to absolutely get after. >> i would like your commitment on this. my last set of questions are for any who wants to take it, but what is the department's plan for the increased demands of the medical treatment facilities? does dod plan to hire more medical providers to help patients at the mts, and what will the active reserve who did not live near the medical treatment facilities? are they going to be penalized for not being able to use the mts? >> well, i will give you a general answer. the defense health agency, dr. woodson. i will tell you that our recommendation on our support for forming a single tri-care system as opposed multiple

systems that are not interoperatable with each other is to try to encourage use of ntf's and then in service care or in network care and then only out of network care as a last resort. that's our role here. we wanted to make sure that while we're doing that, while we're incentiveizing use of ntf's, there might be another process that's trying to reduce the level of care at an ntf, and we're deeply involved in that process right now. >> thank you all. >> thank you very much, sir. general, thank you. thank you for all you do for our nation, for our troops and their families, and we will now move to our second panel. thank you. >> okay. >> what time do we have? >> a little short of members.

it's 12:05. >> welcome. our so-called outside witnesses. strange word for folks who have been inside just about every important military operation or thinking that we've done in the last two decades. retired army general john jr. chairman of the board of the military officers association of america. retired army general gordon sullivan, president and chief executive officer of the association of the united states

army. retired vice admiral john, association of the united states navy. retired air force general craig mckinley, president of the air force association. gentlemen, we thank you for your past svrs. we thank you for your current service to our service members that are retired and their families. i believe that the order that we are calling on you is to first call on general tellelli. thank you for being here, and please give us your statement. >> chairman levin, ranking member. >> i'm sorry. i make -- i apologize for that. i should know better. please carry on. >> members of the senate armed

services committee thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 2015 year budget affecting the entire military community. on behalf the over 380,000 members and survivors and retirees of the retired officers association of america, i have the honor and privilege of being here today to represent them. at the heart of the pentagon's budget challenges is the devastating affect the sequestration that we've heard that several times today in the budget control act of 2011. while debt reduction is a national property, we believe that such a disproportionate share of this burden must not be imposed on the defense department and especially on the backs of the military members and their families. mole believes that continued sequestration cuts for 2016 and beyond will place national

security at risk when we strongly urge congress to eliminate sequestration and fund our military to levels that enable all components of the armed forces to adequately be manned, trained, equipped and compensated. and it's the sustainment of the top quality of our force. the past 12 years of unprecedented demands and sacrifices highlight how radically different conditions are from civilian life. these are the things that many budget analysts and think tanks don't understand. the time the all -- it's been due to military cutbacks and compensation packages that gave

insufficient weight to the extraordinary demands and sacrifices inherent in the service career. they state the personnel costs have risen above 40% more than growth in the private sector since 2000 and are squeezing out dollars for training and equipment. we believe that pitting pay and benefits against greatness is a false choice, and it is important to put the growth since 2000 in context. the all volunteer force is a key to readiness. have costs risen since 2000? yes, they certainly have. using 2000 as a base line without reflecting that historical context is misleading as it implies that it was an appropriate benchmark for estimating what reasonable

personnel and health care spending should be. nothing could be further from the truth. what caused personnel costs to grow higher than in the private sector? by the late 1990s retention was on the ropes because years of budget cutbacks had depressed military pay to where there was a 13.5% pay gap. we cut rye tirmt value by 25% for post-1986 entrants. we had military families paying 18% to 20% out-of-pocket for housing costs, and we moved beneficiaries over 65 out of military health care facilities. this committee worked diligently, and i thank them for that over the next decade there was pay comparability, retirement cuts, zero out housing costs and restore promised health care coverage for older retirees. we thank you and all the members

thank you. since 2010 congress has already implemented changes to slow the growth. in fact, the growth has slowed. these have included significant health care fee changes and stress reductions, pay raises that have either mirrored the private sector or in the case of this year have been capped below the private sector. the fact is that between 2000 and 2011 personnel and health care costs experience an average 7.8% rate of growth, but that cost was essential to keep the previous commitments and avoid retention and reenlistment issues. and from breaking the volunteer force. however, between 2011 and 2014 personnel cost growth has not just slowed, but it has declined

an average of 1.9% a year according to omb historical tables. the growth has slowed. in fact, it's negative at this point. when you look at the d.o.d. military personnel costs, which include military personnel and defense health programs, these costs average 30% of the overall d.o.d. budget. between 2014 and 2015 pay caps have promised housing reductions, the planned reductions in the comisary savings and a new health care consolidation and fees, an e-5 family of four. that's a sergeant with ten years of service looking at the pay tables would lose $5,000 in purchasing power. in 2003 a captain ar army or

marine corps captain, not -- a family of four would experience a loss of $6,000. that's a large percentage of their overall pay. contrary to when i came into the military, we have a married force today. it is not a single force. the budget proposals would be a major step backwards towards repeating some of the mistakes and measures that led the retention and now readiness problems in the past and it needed the improvement that is congress put in place since 2000. again set us up in the future for another parody issue that we'll have to be resolved. these piecemeal reducks are doubly -- we will be offering even more proposals next year. america will remain the greatest power only if it continues to

fill its reciprocal obligations, though the only weapon system that has never let our country down are extraordinary dedicated top quality volunteer men and women who served our ask the and the families who stand behind them. now that we are drawing down from afghanistan, we cannot place these volunteer members of our armed forces in our rearview mirror. they listen. they know what's going on. thu every they do not agree with these proposals. i look forward to your questions. i thank you for your service to our country, and i thank you for all ewe done for our men and women who serve. thank you, sir. >> thank you so much, general. general sullivan. >> mr. chairman, ranking member inhoff, honorable members of the committee, before i begin my formal remarks, i want to thank each of you for your personal

support. certainly the three of you that are in front of me right now who were here when i was battling times such as this back in the early 1990s. we appreciate your support now. i want to note during that time for some reason we seem to have more stability primarily due to the appropriations and authorization which reflected regular order, and i always felt as if you had an open ear for me when i came over to talk and give you a problem, and sometimes you at least believe me and gave me more money if you had it, and if you could get it, but you committed us to navigate difficult terrain without a lot of constraints, such as the chiefs have now. you set limits on funding and manpower and let us strike the

balance as we saw fit and gave us the latitude to act. for that i thank you. senator levin, i probably won't see you in this kind of a role again. i want to thank you publicly for everything that you have done for the services and everything you have done for our country. >> thank you so much, general. >> thanks for the opportunity. the association of the united states army. this committee has, as i said, provided extraordinary support on our active duty guard and reserve, veterans of the army and the other services, their families and survivors. and your efforts are very positive and have bakted the life -- the lives of the entire uniform services community. we are keenly aware that the congress and the administration

have had to make difficult choices while bolstering a weak economy and addressing budget deficits. while we recognize that debt reduction is -- ausa believes that a disproportionate share of this burden has fallen the department of defense requiring that 50% of mandatory budget cuts come from defense even though the defense budget is only 17% of the federal budget is in my view misguide and misdirected. how can such a system be permitted to continue the result is the defense officials, most of the uniform people uncertain

times are demanding agility and adaptability by these defense leaders here in washington as well as on the frontlines wherever they may be. on after all, look at what is happening now in eastern europe. yet, the funding policies in place that are guiding them are so constraining and damaging to our long-term national security that continuing this formula for the better part of the next decade defies logic. the usa has urged congress and our elected and appointed officials to eliminate sequestration or modify these unrealistic rigid budget control measures in ways which would enable responsible and accountable leaders to exercise their responsibilities in a manner that is consistent with the challenges we all face.

now, providing for the common defense in our government to tell you what i, but i need to say it for the record, i guess, is a shared responsibility among the american people. the congress, the president, those of us in uniform, and the citizens of the united states. sometimes i often get the feeling that shared responsibility is a concept which has disappeared somewhere. shared responsibility and accountability is what we're talking about here, and each one of these people who sat here is actable to the american people, and they are being asked to make tradeoffs. the usa believes that the primary source of the budget challenges that face the department of defense is a devastating affect of sequestration and the provisions of the budget control act of

2011. the budget act of 2014 is one of the chiefs pointed out, i think it was chief 6 staff general -- when he said he cool would i back readiness because of think remain in effect and will exacerbate the situation that existed before the murray-ryan bill that you heard the general saying he would have to -- he would see readiness of some of the those brought back, and it is adding a profoundly adverse affect of the defense of this nation, and it will do so well into the next decade. over the last two years sequestration has set america to reduce our national security. they're rapidly shrinking of military forces to unacceptable

levels thereby creating unready forces. it's created unnecessary divisiveness within the armed forces as they struggle to meet budget goals and juggle requirements around, active guard and reserve. we must enable all components of the armed forces to equipped the focus on the mission and not fighting over an arbitrarily depressed defense budget. one of the chiefs mentioned that there were a couple of them that developing three alternatives in a year is really destabilizing

both within the pentagon and it ripples down to the field. the people at they know when the pentagon is coming up with different alternatives. >> when it comes to compensation and benefits provided to all service members and families who make up the all volunteer force. sequestration affects the industrial base, and whether thereby -- whether everybody understands that that the industrial base today or the industrial base is much more sophisticated and diverse and

some of the weapons cannot be made overnight. i believe the services are being forced into a posture or whether designed inadvertently, but if we become involved in any kind of a large scale operation we must turn inward to enhance ourselves. that's active guard and reserve and interestingly enough, it took the active army multiple years to create the fourth brigade of 101st and the fourth brigade of other divisions. this stuff that it does not happen overnight. there is a great american myth that you can just ring the bell in the village green and everybody shows up and off we go. the world doesn't work quite like that anymore. we must rely on the force we have in being active guard reserve, and we need a balanced

force. n now, i would note, interesting things were said this morning. general dempsey said if the budget control act kicks back in, it will cause unacceptable risk, unacceptable risk, he said. the chief of staff secretary cue and their testimony last week said risk a number of times, and it's more than the signed mission in the -- this is a huge step, and i don't believe everybody is appreciating the implications when the chiefs of service and the chairman of the joint chiefs says unacceptable

risk. we have to pay attention to these words. they mean something. they do not say these words lightly. not only a sequestration combined with being combined with a declining defense budget, having an adverse affect on military readiness, we're seeing an emergence of international doubt. you can see it on the covers of the economist this week. can you see it in all of the national papers on whether the united states is a reliable ally and partner. credibility in this context was found in the perception of strength and national resolve to be responsive to not only

commitmen commitments. adversaries are watching us a o also. >> we must maintain a viable all volunteer force. despite xeerd demands men and women in uniform still answer the call. thanks in no small measure with the strong and consistent report of this committee. this is only now at the cost of ever increasing personal sacrifices.

>> principal number one. we all know that. you know that and i know that. the most important element of national security is sustainment of the top quality career force backed by dedicated department event civilians. now, by the way, i serve with general tellelli for a number of years, and interestingly enough we did not collaborate on what i'm going to say now. i acknowledge that the power of high-tech equipment and new equipment, but i am convinced after being in or around the army for 60 years that it is not equipment that wins wars. it is high quality men and women, our most adaptive weapons system, our most loyal and people who will never quit.

it fulfills their training, their well being, and their education. our xeerdly dedicated top quality all volunteer force is critical, and you have consistently recognized the cost of sustaining this current military career in senate packages far more acceptable and affordable than any alternative. in a matter of compensation, i want you to just -- i would say in passing, that we do support the military ausa does support the retirement modernization commitment. we do not want to see a return of recent era pay gaps.

at this critical juncture, but it is imperative that it be available in some modernization. pay caps must not be pertinent. military pay comparability is important to the recruiting and retention of high quality soldiers and will become more important in the future. we're committed to military pay raises that match eci, but this year because of sequestration, funds freed up by a slightly smaller pay increase is the price that had to be paid for soldiers who are train and ready. i do believe that cuts to colas must be reflective of decisions made each year based on the dynamics of the economy and the dynamics of -- within the department. i want to end my testimony as i began it. sequestration is patently unresponsive to the needs of this nation, which is part of the rapid changing world in

which we can not predict the future. we never could predict the future. people a lot smarter than me have said that. not the least of whom was a former secretary of defense gates. i mean, countless people. we all know. it's a slow-moving -- it's irresponsible. no one seems to be accountable. sometimes it's like -- people don't listen. the chiefs are saying the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said unacceptable risk.

b.a. and the department of energy, which are included in that particular budget line. the impact on our national security writ large must be considered. i urge you to pursue some kind of a modification of this budget, which is being used. if we can get back to full order so that we can have a dialogue like we are having here today, decisions can be made -- appropriate decisions can be made based on the needs of our nation for our security and our

national defense. >> thank you very much for your patience. essential we at ausa appreciate anything you can do to get rid of the burdensome sequestration. there has to be a better way. >> thank you so much, chairman sullivan. admiral. >> we're going to have to leave here until about 15 minutes to go to -- what time is it now? about -- >> it's 25 minutes -- >> well, we all have to leave a few minutes before 1:00, so we want to leave some time for questions, so if you can adjust accordingly, that would be great. we don't want to cut you short. >> i'll endeavor to do that. thank you very much. ranking member inhoff, members of the committee, it's always a pleasure to be with you, and thank you for your service to our country and the things you've done for our men and women in the military. i will cut through part of this

just a big -- to highlight a few things, the first is that we lafkly heard a lot of people say today that cuts will not harm the quality of life for our navy families, but i would say that all aspects of compensation, not just pay, are part of what they look at as their pay, and it's going to definitely impact decisions they make when they're out there trying to live their lives. especially things like vah, that are reductions in what they take home each month to be able to pay their bills. we basically are the voice of sailors at ausn, and we did a recent study basically asking some people to tell us what they thought about these impending kinds of changes that d.o.d. has, and 90% of them did not like what's being proposed.

a little bit contrary to what i think the chiefs are hearing when they go throughout, and by the way, we don't envy the chiefs the position they're in to try to make this balance if they're trying to make today. it's just that we think there's a bigger impact to our force than they are seeing when they go out and hold their all hands calls. another one said i think that the d.o.d. is breaking faith with what we signed up for. things are going backwards. you may have seen today that military.com had a survey that said the same thing ours said. 90% of those surveyed -- they surveyed 8,400 service people -- do not like the proposed cuts. what the chiefs are hearing when they go talk, maybe it's not what the real thing that's going on. i would tell you also that the

sequestration as general sullivan says makes big impacts to our readiness, to our force structure, and to our training, but it also has an impact on navy families because as cno said, we are now forced in the longer cruises and we retain people, and we don't retain just that service person. we retain the family, and the families will vote with their feet. i believe that the committee doesn't need to be reminded of that fact. i will cut to the chase so that my colleague to my left has a couple of moments to spend, but i would tell you that for the last 30 years the cost of personnel in the military has remained constant at 30%, 35%, 33%. just the pb is 33 pefrz, and to say these numbers are -- you've

got to be including some things that military compensation doesn't include, like the civilians or something else that's in those numbers that you heard today. so in summary, we think that there's -- that really the biggest factor today that's keeping people in the military is the poor jobs market on the outside. you couple these kinds of changes with that, we are actually going to see people walking with their feet despite what the chiefs are hearing. with that, thank you very much for your attention, and i look forward to -- >> thank you so much, admiral. general mckinley. >> thank you, chairman levin, and i agree with my colleagues to thank you for your great service to our nation. it's been nothing short of exceptional. thank you. >> thank you. >> ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for staying so late with us today. it's been a long day, but a very educational day. i'll try to hit the wave tops because i know we have some questions from you, and we would like to hear those. on behalf of the air force

association's 100,000 members and our chairman george mulner, i would like to thank you and the entire committee of support for our active duty, guard, civilian, retirees, and veterans of the ash force. their families and survivors and for the significant concern and effort you have put forth for our national security. afa is grateful for your unwavering commitment to the men and women who defend our nation and appreciate the priority congress has given personnel issues in the past decade. we also acknowledge the increasingly difficult choices before our nation. it's an honor to be here with you and my fellow colleagues. i know we are all committed to the defense have this nation, to those who serve and have serve and their supporting loved ones. our airmen and retirees dwefsh e deserve every dollar they earn. however, as you have heard today, personnel compensation costs continue to climb at unsustainable rates and for the air force we have a much smaller force. if not addressed, they will

consume much of our combat training and modernization spending over the next few decades. we along with the other associations believe that sequestration provision of the budget control act of 2011 is destroying military readiness and endangering national security. it has normalized a dangerously low level of defense spending constrained defense decision makers and the new normal has created an unhealthy competition for resources within d.o.d.'s base budget. i'll cut to the chase. i believe we can never pay a military member enough for his or her willingness to risk their life for this nation. however, we can insure military members are competitively compensated to enable us to retain the all volunteer force. thanks to increases in compensation and benefits since 2001, our military members are compensated equivalently with their civilian counterparts when all benefits are included.

to conclude, with last we're's grounding of 13 combat squadrons, lost opportunities for real world training and numerous course cancellations, to include our premier red flag exercise, our air force is at a crossroads. sending airmen out to any contingency without the best training and equipment, we can give them could imperil the mission and jeopardize lives. this is unacceptable. our members, stake holders and indeed our airmen are committed to keeping faith with the american people by providing them with an air force that is capable, ready, and resourced appropriately for the future. thanks again for inviting us over here today. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you so much, general. let's just do five minutes here -- four minutes. okay. i take that suggestion. make sure we all have a chance to do this before 1:00. >> you all right? we're back to five now.

percentages of the numbers are not what you think are necessarily on target, and what you would do is welcome any or all of you on that subject or any other subject, but on that subject for the record just for the record that would be helpful. you have heard me and others say that it's an abominable way to budget, and it was never intended take effect. we're going to be offering alternatives to sequestration. we will be talking about this new for a long time. working on alternatives for a

long time. many tax loophole that is i believe and others believe should be closed. we also have to do something in the entitlement area as well. all of the burdens so far of reductions have fallen on discretionary accounts -- fallen and there's been nothing done on the revenue side. so we have to, i believe, address that, and i would hope that when we come up with this specific bill that we'll send it to you and your organizations and that you would then indicate to us whether you can support these kind of alternatives to sequestration. i happen to agree with senator king who phrased it earlier today, it may have been senator cain, but one of the two of you have talked about the fact that

we talk a lot about getting sequestration. whether or not you could right now, but indicate which of these proposed changes in these personnel accounts are the most problematic. if you are able to prioritize them. they all have consequences. to indicate if you are able to say which of the ones that are in the budget proposal are the worst or the most problematic from your perspective? why don't we start at the other end. we'll get to all four of you very briefly. i only have about a minute left. general mckinley. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> i think we need to look into the out years that we can't sustain that over a period of time. tri-care, comisary and others are a concern to our members, but none of them rose to the level of maintaining a strong and viable air force. i think if i could leave you with one point, members don't join the service. at least the air force for pay benefits and compensation. they join because of a patriotic duty to their nation, and over time we have seen adequate compensation provided to our military members. overall our members want to see a veeable air force. thank you. >> we did a survey, as i said, and we got back again 90% of the

respondents had a problem with something. the one that was the biggest impact was the coal actually for them. the least was bah. with respect to the comisary, the thing i kept hearing is there are efficiencies to be had, but i don't see a forcing function that's going to require deca and the commissaries to take efficiencies instead of doing the ease where i things and raising prices. unless we have something in place for are that. >> general sullivan, do you have a priority list? >> we did sign up for the coal up at 1% because we felt that the general could, in fact, and secretary mccue could buy back the readiness.

we were less enthusiastic about the others, you know, so our approach was to go with the cola. >> thank you. general. >> sir, in a real sense, these structural changes that we're talking about are a reduction in compensation. earned benefits. to prioritize prior to what we believe the congress's intent was, the commission who is going to look at all of this is preemptive, and we can continue to piecemeal year on year benefits, compensation for retirees, service members, survivors and pretty soon you've created a volunteer force that's no longer volunteer force that's no longer viable. i support the commission and a true vetting of their recommendations before we prioritize anything, and in a real sense i believe waiting the year is very important to the men and women who serve to keep

the faith with them. >> thank you. i take it from your nodding your heads that when i talked about sending you proposals to get rid of sequestration, you indicated that your organizations would be willing to take a look at them. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> yes. i want to make one point. i didn't sign up every year capping pay. >> i understand. >> it was one year. >> one year. we got that. >> and i reserve -- >> i think that came through very clearly. thank you. >> mr. chairman, one observation, two quick questions. i won't even take my full four minutes. first of all, we got in this mess because here we are 16% of the budget having to take 50% of the cuts. that's the problem that we've got. it's one that's a political problem. general sullivan a, you said it back on january 28th, that given the choice between compensation

and strong national defense, strong national defense, i assume the other two of you agree with that? here is the problem. i look at strong national defense, that's going to have to be modernization, training, and readiness, and that's where we're not keeping up. i'm going to ask you, the four of you, if you agree with the statement by christine fox when she said our men and women are the first to say they're well compensated but the department doesn't have money to maintain their equipment or supply them with the latest technology or send them to get the training that they need and then they are being done a disservice. do you agree with that? well, i do, too. and the last thing i'd mention, would you all agree since we have this military compensation retirement committee that's supposed to report back february of '15 i think that it might be a little presumptuous to try to do something this year that

could constrain the commission with the recommendations that they're studying. they might have to undo something that we have done in order to come up with their recommendation. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. >> i agree with that and i would hope that we have the opportunity to vet that along with the congress as we look at it for our service members. >> good. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator. senator reid. >> well, first, let me thank you all for your great service to the nation and to the men and women you represent. one of the issues here is looking ahead, and regardless of sequestration, frankly, you are preaching to the choir. we've got to get rid of sequestration. looking at even if we eliminate sequestration, there's a lot of analysis to suggest that growing personnel costs will continually erode training modernization, and we know that's critical also. and echoing the chairman, we

have to get a handle on these numbers, and today we heard the admiral suggest that 50% of every dollar goes to personnel costs in the navy. it's going to go up to 60% and then 70% in about a decade. i know little enough about numbers to suggest that all depends what you're measuring. so admiral, you mentioned 33.3% constant figure. is that active service? is that the fully discounted cost of a service member? >> if you look at over the last 30 years and that's in my testimony for the record, over the last 30 years, if you look at toa as opposed to the cost of our men and women and that's total cost including the va, it's about 30%. it went up to about 33% but remember over the last ten years we've increased the size of the force tremendously, so you obviously are going to have larger costs. the percentages have pretty much stayed the same. and as the general said, we actually have seen a downtick

now in the actual costs for the department. >> well, let me just suggest, and we can't set it will in the next 2 1/2 minutes, but this issue of the right metric, of the right measure which we all agree upon is going to be absolutely critical going forward, so i thank you -- and we'll ask you again as we define what we're measuring, we're consistent, so we have a baseline, we can agree it's going up this percent, that i think will help us a lot. another sort of issue here which we've all touched upon in our questions and comments and the chiefs did also, i think we're of a vintage where we remember post support. i was shocked going up to the navy base at newport and having the commander, a relatively young captain, apologize to me because the grass was a little longer because the contractors won't be here as often. i said contractors cut grass?

what general odierno and others suggested, too, is that if we don't get a handle on some of these costs, you're going to see it's going to be sort of mundane initially. you're going to see the old issue of, you know, one month you don't even see your troops because they're cutting grass and painting rocks, and that is not the force we've trained today. these are superb professionals because every day we try to get every bit of training, every bit of -- and that's a cost that we have to look at going forward, and i don't have much time remaining, but i just want to put that one on the record, too. but i thank you again for your service, your excellent testimony, for what you do for the men and women who serve and continue to serve. thank you. >> thank you senator reed. senator sessions. >> thank you. i appreciate your contribution to this discussion. it's very important. we need an outside view from some former insiders, and i think that helps us.

the budget control act includes a sequester. it was passed in august of 2011. we're projecting to increase spending over the next ten years by $10 trillion. budget control act allowed it to increase by $8 trillion, not $10 trillion, but as jim inhofe said, half the cuts fell on defense, and i think it's particularly -- since it was so rapid, it becomes destabilizing, and i wish we could have done better. i one time proposed just increasing defense at 1% a year every year instead of going out another big cut and going up 2.5% a year which we will soon be in track to do. thank you all for sharing this. the debt threat to america is real, but we do not need to break faith with the men and women who say, yes, sir, and go be deployed to the worst