I hope that as the Services continue to reassess their force mixture that those sentiments that you expressed very well will continue to be at the forefront of your mind.

Certainly one's religious freedom should never be curtailed merely because one decides to serve one's country in the military.

I think the ability to believe according to one's own belief system and to express those views appropriately is of utmost importance to the morale of all of our service men and women and to their families.

I didn't think that we ought to be putting this burden disproportionately on the Department of Defense as we were.

I want to first join my colleagues in condemning the deplorable attacks against our servicemembers in Chattanooga last week.

In the coming months, I hope our military leaders and Congress can work together and work in an efficient, effective manner to figure out how we can better protect our men and women in uniform from these types of attacks in the future.

The three key tasks in the national security documents that are out there is to assure our allies, deter opponents, and if necessary, fight and win on the ground.

The committee will come to order.

The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch, Ranking Member

Good morning.

I can tell you that over a period of 4 years, by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we would get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent and perhaps a little lower.

I hope we can begin the 114th Congress on new footing.

I hope that all Americans, particularly those who are currently serving or are veterans, can take the time to give these recommendations the thorough consideration they deserve.

In Recommendation 6, the commission recommends that non-Medicare eligible retirees have access to the same military health benefit program.

Recommendation 13 advocates for eliminating the Family Subsistence Supplemental Allowance (FSSA) domestically and replacing that assistance with the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP).

the recommendations, if implemented, would reduce Federal outlays by $11 billion over the next 5 fiscal years

We have to be able to figure this out. These people have to be held accountable.

In your cost analysis, does the commission take into consideration the overhead costs of implementing these recommendations?