. >> thank you, mr. reas. >> thank you, gentlemen. thank you for being here this morning. i know we talked about the impact that these cutbacks can potentially have on the industrial base. i'm particularly concerned about the ground combat vehicle. this is a basic staple of the ability of the army to fight. the current plan, according to the budget submitted, calls for a total shutdown of the abrams, bradley and striker production lines for three or four years, which starts in fy '14. i just want to get it on the record. how can the army be sure that the production lines, and in particular the skilled worker -- because in a recent visit to my colleague mr. critz's district, that both chairman bartlett and i went to that is a very real concern on behalf of industry that the skilled workers are not going to be there after such a lengthy shutdown. so after going cold for three to four years, how can we be sure that that capacity will be able to regenerate itself? >> well, it's a great question. it's one we're very concerned about and very focused on as well. what we have atte

rea reauthorati reauthoration. i will now turn to the ranking member who has been a strong partner on our work. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your willingness to work on this roundtable. last month's markup of the elementary and secondary education act was a major step forward in the re-authorization process which has been stagnant over the last four years since no child left behind authorization lapsed. i expect there will be many more changes to the bill that we reported from the committee in order to gain broader support and marking up the bill was the first and important step in the re-authorization process. this is not to say there was not a lot of work that occurred before hand to get that bill to markup. to the contrary, we received testimony from over 70 witnesses including the secretary of education, elementary education experts, state and district superintendents, teachers and representatives of special populations. the committee hosted a website where people from all across the united states could address views and solutions and each senator has heard from constituents as to the concerns,