the man in charge is general carlton everhart. welcome. good to have you.his discussion. the money being asked, the supplemental or the $54 billion increase for defense. why do you need it? gen. everhart: the reason i need readiness and my modernization program and weapons system sustainment, the things i need to keep airplanes viable. aircraft that is 55 to 60 years old. if i don't have the money to keep it in the air, it affects and our fighter aircraft. about 25e fleet is years old. money to beve the able to do the things i need to do to execute when the nation calls me to do so. david: have we not been investing enough over the years? is that why you have such an old fleet? everhart: it is a balancing. when you have a continuing doolution, you go a day to contract shortly. if i can only go day today, this is what it is going to cost you now. as we go through the process, it affects the entire system. sequestration, this has been years in the making. moreplaced the oldest with modern things and it is a balancing act. it is an irresistible force in terms

carlton everhart.s more defense spending but they don't want to raise the budget to visit so how will that play out? we are front and center with that. tom: you wonder where we go given the depth and constraints that are out there with the president. alix: and what deals you will have to make with democrats to get it done. but then how does that end up democratic caucus? tom: very good. we are looking forward to that in a bit. is here with us this morning. is this the fifth or sixth round ? there has been a cycle of presidents that we have worked with. who is this president most like? he is different from any other president, really. power veryralized much under his control. of course, president now did the is to say heich wants to control as much can of the apparatus of china. he had enormous power. tom: people look at the gdp numbers which nobody really believes. our single best chart today -- this is almost something that jonathan spence would have. here are the real rates on china. we don't normall

here with us is general carlton everhart the commander of u.s.t of scott air force base in illinois. we thank him for being here. we thank him for his service. and we appreciate you being here. >> appreciate it. >> help us try to understand what's going on politically in terms of the budget and what it means for you. is 10% in terms of increasing the defense budget enough? and how does it impact you directly? >> you know, as far as the budget, any increase no matter how small or large i'll be able to consume. it affects us because it allows us to do more things with readiness, more things with modernization of our program, the increase -- as you just said i'm flying very old airplanes. so i need to increase the modernization program to make them more capable because i keep them for a long time. so this increase in budget allows us to get through the readiness piece, to keep people at the tip of the sword so to speak and ready with their skills and also to be able to support our global operations. >> in terms of priorities is it buying more f-35s.