charles blai house, who is a vhd, and robert rushhour, who is a ph.d.. and robert, i think, i'd like to congratulate you on your award last night at the national academy of social insurance. we're lucky to have someone with your experience working as a public trustee. thank you and congratulations. dr. blai house, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr. ranking member, all the members of the subcommittee. it's a great honor to appear before you today 20 discuss the latest reports. what i'd like to do is gloss over the background information in my written remarks and proceed to primary points about social security financing. the first simple point is that social security costs are rising. most of that cost increase is going to play out from a period that started in 2008 through 2035. the primary driver of those cost increases is demographic. if you think about social security costs, there are two main pieces of them. one is growth in the per capita benefit level and that's driven by law. but also the growth in the number of beneficiaries. on the