>> we have a pretty good way of looking at the relationship between supply and demand. on the supply side you can capture this in a diagram. what it would look like under this budget and what it would look like under sequester. it is not a pretty story when you compare that to the requirements around the globe. i am talking about real requirements for presence and crisis response. it is starting to get ready -- pretty dicey, that that is why we are saying manageable risk. >> i'm told you have $7.9 billion for investment, reset and readiness which sounds a lot like putting money on procurement and operations make in its, do you have a criteria in mind when you decide what you will get from that account? some people think that is pure padding. >> we would be the first to say that over the course of a decade or so that we haven't overseas contingency operation funding, too much has crept into that account. we are determined to fix that. it will take time, we cannot do it overnight. it would represent a bill almost as big as the sequester bill. we will be putting together a plan to do that and we hope to have it teased out of their -- of their -- of there starting in the budget and completing in 20. but it remains to be seen how we will do that but we would agree that we will get oko spent one what it was intended. >> their intent is to try to move what these and during base costs that have crept into oko over 13 years of war, act into the base object. -- back into the base budget. we can only do it if these sequestration caps are lifted. otherwise if you took $20 million or 30 billion dollars of enduring costs and try to put it into the budget without a topline increase, as the vice-chairman said, that is a $20 billion per year cut in essence. so we are working with the white house and first we have to find out if sequestration caps are lifted and then we will unveil our plan. >> the people who can answer your detailed questions are mike mccord the undersecretary of defense and mark ramsey and the ja. i would like to turn it over to them. thank you for being here this afternoon. we look forward to answering your questions of the next several weeks and months as we try to find the right balance and capabilities capacity. >> thanks, everybody. >> more on the president's 2016 budget request with defense under secretary and chief financial officer mike mccord and lieutenant general mark ramsey. they spoke to reporters for a little less than an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, undersecretary of defense mr. mike mccord and lieutenant general mark ramsey. they will read for about 20 minutes and then take your questions after that. >> thank you. good afternoon. i have to begin by sending out greetings to the people of my wife's hometown of punxsutawney, and thank them for letting us share groundhog day with them. in that spirit, i am going to predict at least six more weeks of budget season. possibly more. second, i just want to say to seahawks fans, sorry for your loss, but at least it was an interesting game for once. so, general ramsay and i are here to address an equally compelling topic, the department of defense budget request for f.y. 2016. i understand that the press release has been posted, that a number of documents have been posted on our website that are available to you -- and to others to read that will have more details than we have time or i have capability to address in the session that we have here today. but let me start off by saying that i think there's a couple of themes that strike me about our budget request and the process we went through this year. first is consistency. i think you heard, touched on a little bit, we have the same strategy that was back in 2012. the same end-states that we have -- the same ends that we have been seeking for a couple years are still the goals of this plan and this budget. for example, 304 ships in the navy, 50,000 active duty. the same end points that we had are still with us. we also have basically the same -- the same budget profile. those of you who follow, and i know not everybody focuses on the out- year of a budget as as much as people do inside the building. but if you looked at last year's plan, of where we said we would be in 2016, we are basically at that same place. we also have the same profile really, writ large, over the next five years, as we had been projecting last year. we also have many of the same proposals reforms that we believe are needed to the program, through the budget, whether it is compensation, base closure. there is a lot of similarity consistency of the things that we have been saying we need to get to, things we needed to do where we wanted to go that are still the same in this budget. second, i think that there is a real theme of balance in our deliberations with military and civilian leadership and with the final project of trying to address today's needs as well as tomorrow's needs such as modernization for future challenges. and then finally, i will say that i think that probably what will be a big theme this year as people discuss this budget on capitol hill and other places will be the increase that was alluded to in a question already over the level we have had the last three years, why is that necessary? i think that is our challenge to explain that, of course and make the case for that. i think we have a good story on that and we'll get to that in just a minute. the budget that we're asking for is taking us back to a level that we had earlier in the first several years of this we had a trough since then that was imposed by the budget control act. with the sequester including the mechanical sequester hitting us in 2013 as well as the flattened spending imposed by the ray ryan deal. mr. deputy said that was not the worst outcome we could've had and it did give us some stability, but it was never the department decision to be down at that level for extended time. i think this budget is consistent with where we have been all along. we have a trough, as the deputy alluded to driven by reductions that we have to dig out of. if i could get the next slide. >> the strategy is the same strategy described in 2012 in the qtr -- cutie -- qdr. following mathematics chart will show you over time our budget request. the base budget on the bottom and the war funding on the top. you've heard the numbers on your charts so i will not take time to read them out. i want to take a little time with the next chart showing of the funding lines over the next couple of years. the line on the top the f.y. 13 , budget was the budget that we submitted and developed after the budget control act was agreed to. this is a number you have probably heard many times out of this department. the $487 billion from f.y. 12-f.y. 21. that is represented by that top line. had the super committee not failed to reach an agreement, that's where we would have been. that's where we think we should have been. the following year, we submitted a budget that was a little bit less over the next 10 years. that is the blue line. the f.y. 14 budget line. that was submitted right about the time or shortly before the sequester happened. then in the -- in the ensuing spring and fall, when secretary hagel got here, he directed strategic choice and management review refered to by the acronym skimmer, which is in the chart and we explored a broad range all the way down to sequester levels, focused on an area that is sketched out in gray on this chart, which was the level that we thought we could sustain the strategy fully or getting down to where we thought we would not be able to do it without major changes, a level that was referred to that range is described in gray. the sequester took us below that range. the two-year budget deal, the bipartisan deal kept us flat at that level. the three-year trough was pretty far below where we thought it should be. it takes us pretty much to the that range. you can see within our five-year plan following this, continuing along at the end of that range the lower end of that range. so again, we have been fairly consistent the skimmer was almost two years ago now that we sketched out a range. we are bringing a budget that takes us up to the range that we said then and believe now is the range we need to be in. and taking us back to a level of funding that we had several years ago, not to some extravagant level that is unprecedented in our history. i think again that we have a profile that is both defensible and consistent with what we have been saying. the next slide just gives you again some of the basic facts about where the money is by military department and by the major areas of expenditure this the budget, our operating costs and investment costs. basically what you'll see on this chart if you look at the increase from last year to this year, what is it that you're getting as the budget increases? about 40% of it is on the operating side and about 60% is on the investing in the future side. the personnel costs go up only slightly. it should be noted that the size of the force decreases somewhat. it speaks to the point that we are trying control the growth of compensation costs. we're not cutting competition. even when the size of the force is stable or slightly declining our personnel costs are still rising although again most of the investment that we're trying to put into readiness and also investing in the future. the next slide describes some of the resource tradeoffs and some of the constraints that we have. the deputy has alluded in a couple of forums to some of the issues that happened last year just in the time from when we submitted a budget a year ago today, russian aggression in eastern europe. the rise of isil. the ebola nation the department was sent help out on. we know they expect us to have a ready capable flexible force to respond to unforeseen events like that. our troops do everything we ask of them, but we have to -- we feel we have to have a higher -- i think the deputy has alluded to the planning that went on really assumed that we would have some ability as we saw implemented the president's policy to draw down the forces in afghanistan, that those forces would be able to come home. the pace of world operations has hampered that. that is one of the channels described on this chart that require us we believe to step up our game and make it a challenge for us to try and do what we have been doing at the funding levels we have been at if you want us to continue the have that quality force in the future. as i said, in any introduction briefly, the force structure the size of the military that is we believe we need to support is roughly the same as what we have been saying in terms of end strength and the size of the nuclear triad and major operational units like the number of ships, tactical fighter wings. there shouldn't be any surprises to those of you who follow these issues closely. we have slowed some of the ramps on end strength to allow people more last year's budget i know had some confusion about the army. i can address that later but we have straightened that out in this year's budget request. we also have some of the same proposals to the extent to some of which were agreed in whole. some in part. some were not agreed to at all last year. this is a mixed bag. this is just trying to mention a few. aviation restructure and the air force probably got the most headlines of anything last year. base closure is an issue i think everyone knows. i'll be happy to speak to that. some were agreed to. some were agreed to this part. some were not agreed to at all. this probably doesn't do justice to the complexity of all of these issues, just to list some of the topics on a slide. again, to the things that were not agreed, the department believes the proposals were the correct and necessary proposals. there are also things where we have moderated based on real world changes, in particular the demand for i.s.r. continues high, once we started deploying to iraq and syria. we have moderated the phase-out of the u2 from last year. there -- by three years. there are changes but many of the things we think were the right proposals and we're sticking with them. the next slide lists some of the major modernization programs that i know you probably have had a chance to quickly look at these. i'm not going again read you these numbers. i would say that the -- just to pick out one, last year when our budget was down we said we just can't afford to do this. at the higher level that we are requesting now we feel we can afford to maintain 11 carriers but that is contingent on being up at this higher level. if we had to come down, i'm confident our position would be that we could not afford to stay up at 11 carriers if we had to persist at the $496 billion level going forward. that is an example of something that we -- makes a difference and there will be many examples that i think will need to be discussed throughout the year, what is it that you can afford to do at this higher level. we're proposing it is not affordable at the level that we have been at. these are not of course all of the notable items. we're going to be followed today i believe by the army, navy, air force. the missile defense agency. just to take an example of something that is not on the slide, there is probably a story on some of the vehicle modernizations. something that doesn't get as much attention. some of these programs have a pretty healthy increase over last year's level. many more things that you can delve into as we go through all of the parts of the department's rollout today. in addition, i think the deputy alluded to the fact that we had a good back and forth inside the administration over the fall of some issues that were important to all of us. many of you are quite familiar with it, which is not necessarily only about money. i would say there are over 100 recommendations of that review and only 20% of them involve money. this is an example. i'll touch on this a little later, things that are priorities of the secretary, priorities of the department are not necessarily the biggest budget things in all cases. space is something that is significant funding as well. there is a significant new concern going forward. this is about the future years as well. we have space and i think power projection are areas when we talk about modernization and addressing the future, looking at eroding technological superiority. these are primarily the type of areas we are talking about where we are investing and we can talk about some of the particular munitions. some of these areas are classified and we can't talk about them in detail but there are also some things that we can talk about. something that is important to the deputy. i think he has already spoken about this. i don't know that i could really do this justice compared to the justice who is leading our efforts here. we have tried to give you a flavor on this slide. are not only about money but ways of thinking how to approach the problem. where he is trying to move the department forward. some of the particular programs listed here, probably you're familiar with the rail gun effort. undersecretary kendall also feels very strong about it which i believe he testified on to some extent last week in front of the house. when we get to readiness, i'm going to ask general ramsay to talk about the near term side of what i described as near term readiness and longer term readiness. >>good afternoon. i want to lay out -- as i go through these two slides i want to point out that the first bullet is really a look in the rearview mirror of the last couple of years about how we survived the bipartisan legend act and with the service has done to get back to a full spectrum readiness posture. we have spent an awful lot of time in the readiness area in the last three budget cycles. what has become obvious over those three years is readiness is a very difficult, a very complex area to understand because it has a lot of moving parts. will we have been able to do is we put as much resources as we can in two readiness to get the full spectrum recovery. all of the services -- operations, tempo, being what it is today, and no other strategic surprises in the world on track for 2020. taking a near-term risk. they are more on track for 2023. the events of the last year cause us to relook at this. we had some surprises out there. every single year in the world there are events that unfold area -- unfold. forces have the time to reset -- have to have the time to reset on full spectrum readiness after 13 years of counterinsurgency. they need two rotations through the national training center to achieve that level of readiness. that alone takes money and takes time. there are some other air forces that have not come home as we have thought because they have been ordered to do other things in the world. the isr we thought was going to come out of afghanistan is going to that region of the world. we are moving things around and responding to what the nation calls upon us to do. our primarily garrisoned back home station, they are trying to get their rotation rates set. the challenge for the department and navy and for the marine corps and navy force themselves are too big challenges. one of those is being able to reset their aviation arm, especially older model fa 18's. the devil backlog is a long-standing issue. it has been built up with 13 years of continuous combat as well as the whole redundancy quest ration for 23 -- for 2013. the navy has a backlog of ships to get back to the shipyards. we are working through the models as well. just touching briefly on special operations command, they are balance -- they are balancing. they have largely been untouched by readiness. they are resetting their force from being largely afghanistan to being that global counterterrorism force. that is going to take time to reset them as well. i have two slides to briefly touch upon for compensation. this is another area the department has spent a great deal of time on. there are guiding principles that we used. retirement for military compensation and largely follow the same principles. this budget submission this not reflect the commission recommendations. they use department data to make sure their recommendations use the correct starting set. and we are now embarked upon looking at those recommendations. our submission does not include those recommendations. if you recall the president's budget had a package of paying compensation recommendations that we felt were necessary. it will help us balance the capability force and the readiness force. the dollars we save and compensation this year and last year went back to the services to help balance out readiness and capability. i want you to recall in the qdro report from last year, there are three pages that detail the capacity of the force. we have to go back and look at how the force is compensated because the military personnel in the department are the strength of this nation. we consume about 36% of the budget. we flipped everything over. we have been on a path where we feel we had to slow the rate of growth in compensation. we found a locale disparity in how we do try care. there were certain locales where we are going to force active duty family members to pay a co-payment. that has been eliminated. we are asking this year for a 1.3% military pay raise and the president will ask far 1.3% civil servant pay raise. we'll operate the commissary more like a business. they will take some efficiency overhead reductions. we're looking for legal changes to allow the pricing structure to be changed a little bit. the way the food products are transporteded to the commissaries and looking at flexibility how the surcharges are paid and can be spent. lastly, we are going to ask congress to approve the the pharmacy changes, the same as last year. >> thanks, mark. let me just turn to the next line about reform. i'm not going to read any of this to you. just to make the point, even to the c.f.o., not everything is about money and we do not just ask for money every time we have a challenge to address. i just wanted to take a second to recognize some of the efforts, one or two which are mine across the department, to manage this institution better and to take care of our people. probably the most note sble sexual assault prevention and response. an important effort to the white house and the congress. secretary hagel's organization of missing nernl. about a month ago, kendall signed out a new d.o.d. in 5002. everything has some relation to the budget but these are primarily budget-driven things. if i could just take a second now discuss the war funding. it is a deputy mentioned $51 billion, it is a reduction by over 2/3 from the left at the start of this administration reflecting the draw down. there is still a reduction to the $51 billion compared to $63 billion last year. over $100 billion years prior to that. i want to mention that four areas -- there were four new things that we asked last year over the course of really starting from the president's speech at west point and then progressing on to throughout the faul fall. a new counterterrorism partnerships fund. a new european reassurance initiative and training and equiping the iraqi army. all of these were new in one respect or another last year. all of them were a bit of challenge. working with congress to get them to grow things that were new and different, which is always, you know, harder for people than things that are the same year to year. we have a varying degree of support. pretty much full support on the european reassurance initiative last year. less than terrorism fund. all of these things were agreed to this some form or another last year. all of them are contained in our budget this year. the initiate sieve a unified whole but you'll find it in the budget spread out in different places which is the way congress gave it to us last year. we have asked for it in a more distributing fashion. we have brought it together for purpose s of display. the process and the rules, we develop these rules, it is something i spent a lot of my time on. we followed the rules since. there is nothing new here other than these four new proposals to address particular situations that i described. any plans to change that will require additional relief on the base budget top line. i think that is followed by a pie chart that maybe describes some of the same things. i'll get to your questions. i want to say we think that we have as the vice chairman has indicated, a good budget that makes the right choices for national security. we would be happy to talk later on in the year if need be about what there might be as an alternative to that. but we believe congress should accept and should look strongly with support on our proposal to nupped level above what is allowed by the budget control act. as you know, the president has been consistent ever since the budget control act was signed and not conceding the sequester was right for the there's budget is no different in that respect. >> if you can follow up on the contingency operation. you are asked about this but considering there is only supposed to be about 5000 troops in afghanistan, still an awful lot of money associated with those operations. over $40 billion for afghanistan missions. to what degree is that money directly related to operations in afghanistan and to what degree is the $16 billion for other theater operations like in the gulf? is this the true cost of the war or are there other costs as well? >> we follow the same rules. this is no deviation from that. it. it includes costs from the missions we are doing. as has been the case for many years. >> those bases will presumably stay a while. after next year, right now the number of troops is supposed to go down to nothing. but, we are still going to see overseas contingency operations until at least 2020? >> what you him will see in the budget documents released which i have not had a chance to review myself is a proposal that we work together in the executive branch and congress to move some of those costs for what takes place in the command region to the budget if circumstances allow us to do so. the department is not able to absorb those costs within a big topline however. >> if the war ends, why can't that be done quicker -- the transition? >> it can be done quickly as a larger budget negotiation allows. but, if sequestration is not lifted it is not doable to shove all those costs of back into the base budget without a transition. >> what we are doing in afghanistan, the drawdown, you are talking about the boots on the ground. some other things we are providing to the troops that are left there is isr. we have not brought down the number of isr orbits because even though the troops are inside the wire, helping them build their force, we're still out there trying to make sure the troops inside the garrison are safe. there is no linear direct linkage. >> you have mentioned, the deputy secretary has mentioned the importance of the initiative. not everything is about money but is there a way to get a big picture of this which is a very high priority? >> as you know, we have more b lunt instrument type figures on how much we spend on research and development with the tech base. we have not attempted to put a figure just on what we call and figure just on what we call innovation because one man's innovation might be another him man's more incremental change. we will get back to you if there is a number we want to put on that, but it was more of -- the deputy describes it as a particular set of issues he works on, but i don't think we have a dollar figure. >> wasn't created by the program we have already seen? >> we will have to get back to you on that. >> thank you. a couple of questions. will an unfunded priorities list be submitted to congress this year? number two, on the compensation reform question, is there anything in this budget that are out of sync with the reforms of the commission? >> let me answer the second one first. as you know, the compensation commission works independently of us. we respected that. we have had the same idea as you have. it was briefed and they held their press conference. i think are some areas they addressed and we did not and areas we addressed that they did not. there are a couple of areas together. we did the primary ones that we've addressed. we, the department, gives the president our views and analysis and then he gives an opinion on these recommendations to the congress. i believe it is 60 days. you are not going to see a lot of comment from the department leadership prior to that until we have a chance to do some analysis. and then make a recommendation for the president and work with him on what the ministrations position will be. i think there will be some differences but what position we will take on areas where they have made a different proposal than us or just something we have not is premature for us to say today. i believe your first question was -- i would assume the chiefs continue past practice. for me, on the day we are releasing the budget, it is too early to comment on what people do not like about it already. >> there has been a lot of changes since the last budget. i'm curious. there were two launches earmarked in your booklet that are going to be put up for competition. what are those launches? can you give us an idea of when you do your planning in the future years how much are you able to save by including new interests over what you would have estimated had you only had one provider? >> the air force is coming up later today to give you more precise information that i would be able to on launches. >> ok. do you have anything? >> you said there are two? >> that is what the book said. >> thank you. mr. secretary, do you have an estimate on the reforms? how much money that is worth and it is that in the budget or is that something you would incorporate into the budget once congress approves? >> i think there were three parts to the answer to that. first, there had been efficiencies in every budget i have been here. especially starting with fy12 when secretary gates was here. where the money was taken out by the comptroller organization upfront. in fy16, the budget we are submitting now, there are billions of dollars of either efficiencies or harvesting or making tough choices and spending less on things that are a priority. that could be maybe recapping our facilities, for example. him him efficiencies is the word i will describe loosely to get money as well as doing without something because it is a lower priority and you don't have the funding. using that broader definition, the budget has from the four previous rounds come about $70 billion to use. i described on one of the slides a number of institutional reform efforts that are trying to make this place run better. whether it is response reorganizeing the office, a number of things like that that are not tied to a dollar target percent. on institutional reform, it made a brief reference to the effort the deputy secretary has undertaken to look at some crosscutting areas of our enterprise like human resources, financial management, this obliging. that is still in development and there is not a dollar target taken out of or assumed in this budget for those efforts. the deputy and his leadership are moving towards trying to have that ready for the fy17 budget. >> what about the compensation reforms? is that baked into the budget? >> i was not characterizing that as my answer as opposed to policy proposal but yes, those kinds of things are baked into the budget because those are things we routinely put a price tag on doing them or not doing them. how many people they apply to, etc. those things as in last year's budget have dollar assumptions on cost or savings built into the budget that stretch throughout the department's accounts. >> thank you. is there a current estimate on how it access base infrastructure there is and you anticipate congress will expect another round of it? >> the estimate on nexus capacity, you probably have heard figures in the low 20% in the result would a bit of a catch 22. we have been enjoying from doing really detailed updates on that which is basically it. the figure is a few years old because we are constrained but doing the kind of work we do to get a more precise number. do i think congress will eventually agree? i do. i worked on capitol hill for many years and i spent five years working with senator mccain's staff at the time to get authority -- the turned into the 2005 one. we started back in 1997 so it took -- it does not necessarily happen overnight. in this case, it has not. i think the case is still compelling. any person running a business or a company large or small would say aevery 10 to 12 years, it is time to look at your physical footprint and see if it is the relevant to your needs. it has now been 10 years since the last round. we are for the round of 2017. this is just a number of things i think the department has proposed. whether it is on the a-10, looking at something that is older, not single mission assets. whether it is trying to control compensation cost or for that matter prioritize for structure. i think these are the kinds of things you would expect an organization is trying to stay competitive to do. we have had a more challenge than most organizations do. we continue to propose things that are the right and rational thing to respond to a changing world. to redirect resources to hire priorities. >> also like to point out overseas infrastructure. we just announced european infrastructure in the last few months. we are very comfortable with what that is. >> two things. $135 billion. for ohio. is that for ship construction? congress agreed to create a separate fund but there was no money in it so how are you funding that? you indicated you are continuing the modernization program. the budget does not reflect that. they show 22 operational cruisers. i'm were confused on that. >> let me answer the order. the ohio replacement program is funded in the research account. we are still a couple of years out from buying the first ships. that is still in the r&d account. on the cruiser modernization the navy is proposing, as i understand it, to do what is consistent with the legislation last year with the restrictions. it is less than everything they asked for last year but still includes modernization. again, the navy's following later today and can probably explain with greater fidelity. >> transitioning into the base -- you mentioned it was contingent upon sequestration. what a short-term deal motivate you to do the plan? [indiscernible] >> i don't know how likely a full repeal is. sequester has about six more years to live on the books. the period of time we are talking about is almost under that time. in my mind, i view them as a common timeframe. >> no two-year set-aside would make it enough? >> i cannot rule out what congress might agree to if there was another short-term deal which is certainly a possibility. what we had in mind so far, and we are still early in discussion between ourselves and onb, is the longer term. something that gave us confidence on a way ahead which is something we have been lacking. >> the budget documents talk and you mentioned, investments in space and protecting american assets in space. the budget request for space seems to go down from 7.4 last year to 7.1 this year. i'm wondering if you could talk broadly about why that money is going down and also what you are trying to do here to sort of protect space assets in this budget. >> thank you. this is probably the first of many awkward answers you will get on the subject. [laughter] it is really both. it is a range of programs. >> i noticed the political challenges you mentioned. you put russia and ukraine above the rise of isil. >> i would not say it is a relative judgment just by the placement. i think would general ramsay could speak to is that sort of taking on board what russia's activities means going forward. it is still a work in progress and is budget is not meant to find a final answer on what changes are to be necessitated by russian activities. the initiative we have this year tracks pretty closely what we had last year in terms of presence in europe and giving us additional time to develop policies further. >> i mentioned the european infrastructure announcement a few years ago. all of that was permitted infrastructure. -- permanent infrastructure. >> we did the european consolidation. we have done a lot of work on that and recycled back to it again where we the vast majority of the efforts we are undertaking in this area are highly classified. we are going to struggle to explain them, i fear, other than to our committees behind closed doors. i can say in general terms we are looking at resilience, better situational awareness securing both can indications -- communications. mark, at her know if you want to add anything here. the other thing i will describe is the mission we are describing is a multiyear thing. the funding is relatively flat. if you wish have the services craft detailed plan b sequestration level budgets for the joint staff review? and to what extent will all this be public at some point so you may be able to mobilize some public support to pressure congress to rollback sequestration if they have a better handle on consequences rather than just saying it will be an unmanageable risk? >> i will ask mark to comment on a couple of parts of this. we did last year and the year before asked to do some work on developing an alternate level. the year before, we had a full five-year plan as well as the level we actually supported. we got a lot of complaints that we were crushing the workforce with multiple levels of detail while people were dealing with sequester in the real world. every other kind of challenge financially -- getting ready for audit. this year, we tried to be a little more streamlined and focus a little more than just 16. but, as opposed to having a full alternate reality five-year plan for everything. so, the budget we are cementing today is not about sequester, it is about what we think is the right answer. there is a time and place to talk about sequester as an alternative. but i don't think today is that day. senator mccain had a hearing the other day where people had a chance to talk about sequester to some degree. last year, the department released a publication giving examples of major moves. not every single line items but major differences. that document will be forthcoming this year. it is not a budget document per se. the president has only approved one funny profile and that is what we are here to explain. i think if and when -- this will come up at future hearings -- there may be even future hearings devoted to sequestration beyond the one that was held last week. i think at that time hopefully we will have a chance -- i know the vice-chairman expressed himself that a joint war fighting impact would be useful to what you would buy and how much people you would have to cut. >> it is probably worth going back to look at the 2014 document. we are doing a refresh now. >> realistically, when my to come up with a refresh document? otherwise, it is an " alice in wonderland" one. >> every year, we have asked for something higher than sequester and every year we have gotten something higher than sequester. we have not gotten everything we asked for but we believe it has been useful and productive. it is the right place to start. >> the vice-chairman said it is a strategy. this is what we need to defend the country. >> we have time for just two more. >> if you talk about the airspace initiative and if there is a need for a new type of fighter with capabilities? why continue to buy the f-35?

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