The committee will come to order. I want to thank you all for joining us here today as we consider the fiscal year 2015 budget request for the department of the air force. I appreciate our witnesses testimony and their support for our airmen. Joining us today are the honorable Deborah Lee James secretary of the air force and general mark sub to chief of staff of the air force and he has brightened up the room a little bit by inviting his wife that betty and his daughter lives to be with us. Thank you for joining us. I want to especially welcome secretary james the 23rd secretary of the air force as this is her first Posture Hearing before a committee. We are also delighted that she is the former house staff member and in fact we were talking before we came in here and she pointed out to us where one of her offices was in her tenure on the staff. We are happy to have you back. Welcome back. This committee and you general welsh have warned about the consequences of the cuts to our Defens
Being forced to choose a number of bad options. It is not like we have a good thing or bad thing. Those choices were made a long time ago. It is between good and good. Needed and needed. Best structure to balance readiness and modernization is a tough thing. What elements of the structure recommendould you retaining if you have the Budget Authority to do so . Is a mission of great concern. What others have similarly impactful consequences . The greater shortfalls we have related to the requirements every year are isr and fighter squadrons. Those are the two things we cannot meet the demands on more frequently than anything else. In the isr category, i would include command control platforms. Isr is clearly the first category that i would maintain capability in. As we do best more, we will not meet them by a wider margin. We have to be careful about the vesting our fight too much because we are at a requirement today. We are going to go seven squadrons below the requirement with this bu
Vigorously prosecute offenders and hold commanders accountable for establishing zero tolerance policies. Policies. Mr. President , to say that general caseys response was disappointing, would be an understatement. I am convinced that if the military had heeded the concerns that i and others like senator mikulski raised back then, a decade ago, this terrible problem would have been addressed much sooner, saving many individuals from the trauma, the pain and the injustice that they endured. Back then, sadly, the attitude of the high ranking officials who were testifying at that 2004 hearing was dismissive even though these crimes never should have occurred in the first place, traumatized the survivors and erodes the trust and discipline that are fundamental to every military unit. Thankfully, the attitude i perceive among military officers today is markedly different from the one that i encountered nine years ago. The work of translating the military stated policy of zero tolerance into
Walk to a coffee shop or bar and i think that would also help to shift the policy because you cant have a major mega Super Walmart in a walkable environment. And so i think we are choosing in the other areas of our policies and lifestyles we are choosing systems that dont fit with the current food system and i think thats really cool that maybe Something Like urban design or urban planning and maybe by policies which are getting more attention all around the world, not just here in california where we should be biking but literally everywhere around the world. That is really connected to the food policy and giving people a reason to say i want to be able to bike somewhere. And maybe i am not going to get the buy one get one free because i cant carry it in my bag. It seems disconnected but they are very connected and that will help nudge the policy in the right direction. The major policy question is Campaign Finance reform. Can we get the lobbyists to not be able to decide our every mo
I dont know. We havent taken any position about that. Im not sure entirely that people really understand the whole this phenomenon scientifically. And what the treatments are. That is also part of this. To encourage the scientific community, the medical community and the military to focus on this problem. If you can deal with the 45 who are likely to be revictimized, you would be reducing the incidents in the military in a big way. We didnt know quite enough to make a totally free recommendation on that point but this problem has to be addressed. The c. D. C. Is the Gold Standard on Public Health issues and to develop an approach. The only change i would like on the recommendation is to change one word. To consult, to expand services. This way they have got the option and maybe they will report some place else. Not only to expand, but to develop ssts too. This has been ignored and it is just a way of what are we going to do about this . If we can reduce this number, it would have a maj