Elevated debt levels and fairly small cash balances at year end pushed adjusted debt to EBITDA above our key 2x downgrade threshold at Dec. 31, 2018. Nevertheless, we expect the company will use free cash flow to reduce debt and return adjusted leverage to below 2x in 2019. We believe the recent drag on cash flow, as well as higher leverage, will be temporary as price increases and lower commodity input costs in 2019 even out some of the effects from last year's tariffs. Most of the $800 million increase in debt year over year can be attributed to attractive growth initiatives like the Craftsman acquisition in 2017 and associated working capital investments in 2018. The company made more than
