Steve Buyer: “Well, I will close this tonight and reclaim my time that on May 13 we will mark up the Subcommittee on Military…”

“Well, I will close this tonight and reclaim my time that on May 13 we will mark up the Subcommittee on Military Personnel's Chairman's mark and we are going to address the increase in military pay. We are going to change the pay tables to increase retention. We are concerned about the retention not only at the mid-level officer and NCO, but also the retention of general officer strength. They are leaving for other jobs and that is not healthy. We are going to reform the retirement system. We are looking at creating a Thrift Savings Plan for the military. Part of this emergency supplemental, about $1.8 billion, is for the funding of the pay package, subject to the authorization that we come up with. So we are going to address the pay differential and we are going to take a very serious look at a lot of other things. I did not totally concur with the Senate's package, S. 4. It became a huge Christmas tree and everybody wanted to throw their arms around the soldier. But the problems are much greater. It is the quality of life issues. It is the housing issues. It is the readiness. It is the lack of spare parts. It is a large issue. So we are going to make sure that we try to address it by the breadth and we are going to be smart about our business.”