senator kerrey arrived. thank you senator kerrey for arriving. >> thank you, mr. chairman.the witnesses and commending them for a job well done. thank you very much. and i think it's extremely important to the meeting today and i thank the chairman for holding the meeting. this hearing comes as the department yesterday formally submitted its budget for fiscal year 2016. while we await the full details there are a few immediate notable aspects. first, the requested top line of some $35 billion above the budget control act spending caps of defense. the spending cap for fy 16 represents no growth on real terms. the department has requested $35 billion more. shows how deep the funding shortfalls run, particularly with respect to forestructure and the training and the modernization accounts. second, the department has again requested measure to slow the growth of personnel. the department submitted these proposals last year, congress supported some and elected to defer the others until after this commission reported its recommendations. many members on both sides of the aisle ha

i'm going to ask commissioner kerrey, bob kerrey to share the specifics of that. [ laughter ] >> well, first of all, i think you would be having a difficult time retraining men and women to serve in the military had this congress not made all of the changes that it made since we've been fighting this war for the last 14 years. i mean if you just look at what you've done with pay and compensation, it is now better than market. and it needs to be. the changes that have been enacted by republicans and democrats have not been given enough praise in my view. had those changes not been done, given the stress on families today, you know, i'm a proud geezer father, i've got a 13-year-old. if we think about having to move our son once every four or five years, it's a traumatic thing inside of our household. that's way more stability that anybody in the military gets. so the stress on the families has increased over the past 14 years. and thanks to congressional action the pay and benefits are quite strong and they need to be in my opinion, otherwise we're going to have a difficult time retaini

bob kerrey was eventually convinced to go along. bob kerrey was unhappy for the opposite reason. mostly we face the critique from progressives. bob kerrey didn't think we were going far enough. we created the forerunner to the bowles simpson commission, the kerrey entitlement commission. al gore cast the deciding vote. i president comes in with 370 electronic -- electoral votes has both houses, and does nothing but every single day press on this deficit reduction act, and it passes by one vote. however, it just shows how hard it is. it changed the world. it changed the world because people had expected at this point the deficit would go up enough and now the democrats controlled everything. markets completely expected that. when they saw there was tangible deficit reduction it had a dramatic effect on long-term interest rates, the investment climate, and it triggered and started what became the greatest investment-led recovery and expansion our country had. it changed the face of fiscal policy in the united states. 20. about, was he just there for the ride, they didn't live throu

i'm going to ask commissioner kerrey, bob kerrey to share the specifics of that. >> you are? [ laughter ] >> well, first of all, i think you would be having a difficult time retraining men and women to serve in the military had this congress not made all of the changes that it made since we've been fighting this war for the last 14 years. i mean if you just look at what you've done with pay and compensation, it is now better than market. and it needs to be. the changes that have been enacted by republicans and democrats have not been given enough praise in my view. had nose changes not been done given the stress on families today, you know, i'm a prr proud -- i'm a very proud geyser father, i've got a 13 years. if we think about having to move our son once every four or five years, it's a traumatic thing inside of our household. that's way more stability that -- than anybody in the military gets. so the stress on the families has increased over the past 14 years. and thanks to congressional action the pay and benefits are quite strong and they need to be in my opinion, otherw

kerrey to you there were other things i thought were coercive.hey talked about electronic monitoring of your tv watching. think about this. so the government will be on your shoulder, watching you watch o'reilly or whatever making sure you're not sitting there too long. taxes on desserts sugar soft drinks colas. would that even work? >> a lot of this you have to remember, are recommendations okay? doesn't mean it is going to happen. so let's just, clear that up. however, do i think a lot of might be overstepping? i think so. i don't really think that the consumer is going to be able to take all of this in and make all of these changes. >> hey, this isn't because we're stupid keri, come on chip, we're not dumb, right? the real problem we understand what is bad for us. we're not taking the government recommendations. how, why would people be willing to make a change in their diet for the good? >> well i think -- gerri: ask chip. >> okay. >> well they shouldn't be based on false promises to save the environment. this all works into the president's s

and former senator bob kerrey of the 9/11 commission said evidence relating to the plausible involvementvernment agents in the september 11th attacks has never been fully pursued. >> we continue to maintain strong counterterrorism cooperation with the kingdom of saudi arabia our mutual cooperation includes information sharing about shared threats from al qaeda and other violent extremist groups. >> reporter: moussaoui also detailed his life inside al qaeda, including the time when bin laden's mother came to visit, spending a week at his base in afghanistan. she was greeted with a banquet and a festive firing of russian machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. >>> investigators into the death of an argentine prosecutor say they have found a draft document he wrote requesting the arrest of argentina's president. he was found dead of a gunshot wound last month. it happened hours before he was set to appear before congress there to detail allegations that president christina fernandez agreed to cover up iranian involvement in a 1994 terror attack in exchange for trade benefits. >>> what h

kerrey is coming up next what sports >>gary: good evening everybody know what happens when you have ad king tamed other clubs want to players. drain mahon green will like to return home and signed an offer sheet from the detroit as pistons he attended michigan say the group and saginaw michigan. this is green has been long in trade to return back to the michigan era area the warriors have 72 hours to match the deal or let green walk away. >>gary: green says he has no idea where the story gusts started and the guy the road for yak " it's pretty credible. this guy is gonna break the bank at the end of the air the guide their rights for yalow is pretty credible yahoo... >>gary: >>reporter: george karl onetime warrior coach is now officially the new coach of the sacramento kings. he's the third head coach this season we're not winning does and what happens. the big question though is is that it alone with the market's cozens and that's our works in the nba. george's back in the hot seat >>: is taught to do is done back time to do the having the crazies. to go on the basketball coach's lif

question or follow-up on a question that senator mansion asked about the perception, and senator kerrey, i think you responded to it, the perception that we're losing people because we're not competitive with the market. it's year 10. i think you made the comment that we're at or above market. did i understand you to say that? could you expand on that? >> actually i did say it and i cannot expand on it. it came from the analysis we did on the commission, that we are at or above where we are in the private sector. it was congressional action that did it, and i think we need to maintain that status. >> so the perception that people are leaving based on pair benefits may not be right. there might be other reasons that they're leaving lifestyle or others but not pay or benefits? >> you have technical individuals, and earlier doug was talking about one of the problems we've got is a lot of these new civilian companies that are forming up, and they'll pay for a security clearance. and they're apt to bid up what the military will. i think you'll find exceptions to it, but i think in the aggreg

. >> instyle magazine is receiving criticism for a photo of actress kerrey washington on its cover.ncern with a statement, while we did not digitally lighten kerry's skin tone our lighting has probably contributed to this concern. washington efrs tweeted beautiful statement. thank you for opening this convo. it's an important one that needs to be had. i don't know. i know lighting can affect -- we were playing with the lights here and washed our different skin tones out. it happened clearly in this picture. >> i don't know why magazines continue to make this mistake particularly with african-american women. it's a very sensitive issue. i'm glad that kerry washington tweeted out, this is a conversation that needs to be had. look no farther than viola davis speech. i'm so happy you chose to put a dark-skinned woman in a role like this and look at lupita nyong'o talking about as a child she saw no role models with her hue, so she wanted to lighten her skin with cream and bleach. a really big issue. >> i love kerry washington. >> i do too. >> i think she's amazing. when she saw the pict

i'm going to ask commissioner kerrey to answer that. >> we've had a very difficult time retaining menomen of the military had congress not made all the changes we've made since we have been fighting this war the last 13 years. if you look at what you've done with paying compensation, it is now better than market and it needs to be. the changes that have been enacted have not been given enough praise in my view. had those changes not been done -- given the stress on families today -- i'm a proud geezer father. i've got a 13-year-old and if we think about having to move our son once every four or five years, it's like a traumatic thing inside of our household. that's way more stability than anybody in the military gets. the stress in the families has increased over the past 14 years and thanks congressional action the paying benefits are quite strong and they need to be in my opinion otherwise we'll have a difficult time retaining men and women in spite of the fact the seconded thing has happened. senator, fellow draftee referenced the good old days. the american people are quite proud