army secretary john mccue and chief of staff ray odierno. the white house acting budget director appears before the house budget committee to discuss the $3.8 trillion budget. >>> and later on, ed gillespie, the former counselor for president george w. bush speaks at the hispanic leadership conference network. >>> saturday on "washington journal," reuters tax policy correspondent kim dixon looks at the tax proposals included in the $3.8 trillion budget that president obama released earlier this week. lar lawrence yun talks about the current state of the housing market. after that, "usa today" correspondent dennis kauchon talks about an analysis in a drop for spending for services, employee compensation and infrastructure upkeep in certain states and localities. plus your e-mails, phone calls and tweets. "washington journal" live saturday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. oh >>> army secretary john mccue testified before the house armed services committee friday on the budget request. the overall army budget request of $184.6 billion is down fr

general mchugh, general ray odierno, thank you for your service. general, 38th chief 6 staff with the a.m., welcome to your first of your many posture hearings. i'm sure you're glad to hear that. our nation's very fortunate to have the two of you leading our army during these challenging times. we clearly understand the challenges the department of the army faced in crafting this budget request, and we know you probably wouldn't be here if you didn't strongly support it. what it boils down to is based on this budget request, what is the risk associated with the army-ability to meet the national security needs of this nation. this is what we need your help with, not only the risks, but the critical assumptions behind these risks. many years ago the army testified in front of the house subcommittee on armed services. i'd like to read three quotes from the army's testimony. we have the best men in the army today that we've ever had in peace time. and although we have a number of critical equipment problems yet to solve, i can assure you that our troop

army secretary john mccue and chief of staff ray odierno testifying before congress on the army's budget. then at about 10:20 the white house acting budget director appears before the house budget committee to discuss the $3.8 trillion budget. and later on ed gillespie the former counselor for president george w. bush speaks at the hispanic leadership network conference. >> in 1966, julian bond was prevented from taking his elected seat in the georgia state house, after state representatives voted 184-12 not to seat him due to his stance against the vietnam war. his appeal went to the u.s. supreme court. >> i went to the court to hear the argument, and i was sitting in the court, just behind the bar with the lawyers in front of me, and i was sitting next to my lawyer's partner, victor robinowitz and the attorney general of georgia was making an argument that georgia had a right to throw me out because i said things that were treasonous and sad ishs. and i think it was judge white said to him, he said, is this all you have? he said, you come all the way up here and this is all you have? s

we're resuming testimony from army secretary john mchugh and chief of staff general ray odierno. >> -- by 50 this drastic cut. how you arrived at 50%? particularly since the budget is documented itself says we have a backlog of equipment that has to be reset. >> well, we do have a backlog, as we retro grade out of -- we've retrograde out of one theater and retrograde out of the other. but we had to fit in the reset program within our entire budget allocation. we tried to do it in a way that would ensure that the rates are sustainable so at least in the near term, we're not causing any work disruption or work interruptions. so it was both a strategy but also a budget decision that, you know, was one of those hard ones that i spoke about. but we think it will keep the lines open and progressing as we go through this fit. >> 50% will be able to keep the lines moving? >> i think -- it's a steep hill to go off. >> in the base budget, we sustain 50% but there's also a piece of oco that will be used to fund this. that's where the rest of this will come out of iraq and afghanistan. >> i they'

army chief of staff general ray odierno. this country. he's now chief of staff of the u.s. army and your fashion for the military and passion for football. this is something you really wanted to do and you feel very comfortable supporting the nfl. >> i think it's a relationship that is a support for the military. we have a lot of the same ethos. team work, and all those come together. by the way, the nfl is an extremely popular sports among our soldiers. >> this gentleman also played college football for west point. as you can see, he looks like a football player. he understands the game and has worked with the giants. as you look back in your days in iraq, you spent most of the last decade over there fighting the war -- fighting the war. have you suffered any of the trauma that most of the soldiers suffered? >> i wouldn't say trauma, but all of us, as you come back from a deployment, it takes a while for you to decompress. it takes you a while to reintegrate with your family. >> when you talk with the secretary of defense g

army secretary john mccue and chief of staff ray odierno. the white house acting budget director appears before the house budgeto