Preparers as well as taxpayers if they are in the area of being eligible for a premium tax credit, and even if they arent, making sure they are comfortable filling out at return. We have started the Public Information campaign this week. We will spend the rest of the week getting preparers and taxpayers comfortable. 70 or eight 80 arent going to have anything at all. A big chunk of people will not be affected. We will get you and the committee the information over how much we have spent for i. T. Or personnel. What are we spending this year, and what do we expect the requirements are going to be in the next year or two . I am sure when you next appear before us there will be a lot of discussion about the dollars necessary. I wanted to ask about bonuses. Making sure bonuses are being given to employees who have shown improved performance or goals they have met. Have you taken we put some language together. Have you taken the language to make sure the bonuses would be rewarded to those who showed employee performance and productivity . They are performance awards. The goal is one percent of compensation. The performance judgments are made by managers, not by the employees themselves, and the history is that those awards have gone to about two thirds of the employees who do not get any. The average size is about 1200, so no one is making a lot of money. If i could respond to the one percent in terms of how did i come to this decision, after the decision was made to reach the sequester levels that performance awards would not be paid, they issued a governmentwide edict that one percent performance awards could be made. My predecessor decided while the contract provided with the bargaining unit performance awards, a pool of 1. 75 , that we thought negotiation ability changed that number and the number went to zero. The union filed a grievance, and unfair label labor practice, and a lawsuit. In the process, i hope we will have that agreement settled. We have been negotiating about what the performance pool ought to be Going Forward. What does that mean . The number of people eligible . The bargaining unit is thousands of employees. You take the salary, and what is the pool . These arent meritbased . These are performance awards based on merit. The size of the pool available for awards was set at 1. 75 . That will get a performance award . 1. 75 was the pool. Each individual was evaluated. The judgment was made. About two thirds were eligible for performance awards. The average award was about 1200. One third of them were not eligible because they had not performed determined by the manager, and the question is what is the size of the pool or whether there would be a pool or not. A pool at all. The decision was no pool. They decided they would drop the unfair labor practice and drop the lawsuit, and we would pay not 1. 75 into a pool that one percent. In terms of how we are able to do that, we had in our budget funding for that, because as a result of the sequester, we lost another 1300 people, and on an annual basis, that provides part of the revenues we need. We have made more assumptions about cuts and other expenses of about four percent, and the arrangement with the union is we will not pay those awards in the fiscal year the way we have always done it. We pay managers two or three months after the fiscal year into the next one, so we are moving the bargaining unit awards into the next fiscal year. This year we are only going to pay one pool award. Thats how it fits into the budget. Really quickly, reclaiming my time. I was going to give you two minutes. What i am interested in understanding is i think if someone is eligible for a reward because they have shown based on their merit and hard work that they deserve it, i am fine with that. My issue is you said the managers make the decision. I assume you have issued guidance whereby they can use some kind of criteria to make this. There is an agencywide Performance Plan run by the Human Capital office. There is a followup to make sure there is not a manager saying, so the people have actually met these awards because they received these performance awards who are the subject of investigations. I want to make sure that moving forward these awards are appropriate. Thats where my question is. I asked the question myself to make sure for managers when we pay a performance award we need to be comfortable the system is actually rewarding performance. Employees know who is performing and who is not, and if you make rewards for people who are not performing, thats not good for morale either. We have a sophisticated system, and your point is taken that we need to a value weighted to make sure we are comfortable, that this isnt lake will be gone lake wobegone, and everyone is above average. We could do this within the budget. These are employees who havent had a pay raise in four years, who have been subject to a lot of difficulties over the last year, and ultimately, 75 of our budget is people. Without the people the work isnt going to get done. Part of the reason i am wandering around the country in the middle of winter is to remind those employees we value their work. They are terrifically dedicated. Some of them have been around 20, 30 years working on this. Their only concern is can we get them the resources to provide better taxpayer services. If in saving us the risk of having to pay more in that pool and being able to time it in a different way i can send a signal to the employees that we value their work, it seems to me that was appropriate. With that, i yield back. Anybody have any other questions . I think we are about to move into panel two. Let me say to you, commissioner, thank you. I know how busy you are. Think you for being here today. We know what a difficult job you have, and sometimes we lose sight of the good things the irs does, that you do every day under difficult circumstances. Collecting the revenues, talking to folks, answering questions, chasing down the bad guys, all the things you do every day, we very much appreciate, and we are here to help you do that even better, so think you for the time. This concludes the first panel, and we will have the second panel, on. Thanks so much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] demo we are at the u. N. Where a closeddoor meeting there was a Security Council meeting yesterday as well at the request of ukraine created this is the second one in many days. The cameras are here and we planned to take you to any speakers that take the podium throughout the day here on cspan. Meanwhile, the spokesman for the uns secretarygeneral tells reporters that the u. N. Is gravely concerned about the situation and plans to talk about it with president Vladimir Putin and. Vladimir putin. The situation in ukraine is very grave. Senator bob corker of tennessee says we will continue to bring up we will continue to bring you updates on the cspan network. Cspan, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room of congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House of all as a Public Service to private industry. There cspan, created by cable tv industry 30 years ago and funded by your local cable satellite provider. Watches on tv, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. New cspan. Org website makes it easier than ever to keep tabs on washington dc and share your finds via facebook, twitter, and other social networks. Easy search functions allow you to ask us our daily coverage of events. New tools make it simple to create short video clips and share them with your friends come up yet facebook, twitter, and other social networks. You can send links to your video clips fayette email to your video clips via email. Watch washington on the new cspan. Org. If you see something of interest, clip it and share it with your friends. Next, a discussion about the future of afghanistan as the u. S. Prepares to draw down its presence. This panel focuses specifically on Media Coverage in the region. From the u. S. Institute of peace, this is a little more than an hour. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming to this discussion about the United States relationship with afghanistan. I will be moderating this second panel, which will be a little bit looser because i am a tv guide. I like to walk around with the microphone and things like that. Ourll and should use distinct panel. I wanted to say a couple of things and show you a little bit of videotape. Being a television person i cannot resist doing that. Spent 17 months 201110 and 11 2010 and serving the United States embassy in kabul as the director of diplomacy. Like many others in the room i fell in love with afghanistan and the afghan people. There were three things i noticed in the area of the afghan media that struck me in perhaps it will help us get started here. The first thing, which led me to the after job of the job i have now, seeing that there was a program on the evening news on the Radio Television of. Fghanistan, rta its very late its very able leader is with us today. The voice of america has an hour of news every evening. What struck me was it was a very well put together program. All my afghan friends watched it. Effectiveness of that conversation and that reliable news may quite an impression on me. And i thinkhing everyone in the room, if you follow afghanistan or afghan media issues, had been struck by this one time or another is the extraordinary adventure lotv. To the enthusiasm and energy that that private company has brought to the afghan media scene more about that in a minute. They are not the only ones. There are Something Like 75 television stations and 175 radio stations. Either normal sleeve vigorous, varied conversation going on on the airways and in afghanistan. Largest but be the it is one of many. That is a notable piece of media landscape. The third thing is as an embassy thecial i went around country and often visited tiny in villages and small towns around afghanistan. There are a lot of them. Going to a oneroom fm station and a small town but does not have to much going for it and you find young people at the microphone finding some way to get a little bit and music on with a basic tape recorder. In many cases the stations were help ofby locals with ngos, which is resented by some of interviews. While they run some local ent, maybe have another green shoot and a strong one, an important one. A varied source of strength for afghanistan Going Forward. We are here in this panel to discuss what i think is one of the most important advances over the last 12 years. We have heard from many others in the previous panel. I am a little biased because i spent nearly 30 years in the business of journalism. I ams dill sort of in it. Of speech, if you dont have that you aint got much. Have a democracy, which afghanistan seeks to be. It is a sense that people might say what they think and that the media, maybe there are some limits but fundamentally they can do so as well. That weat the subject would like to get us to talk about. I want to talk about how we can support the media sector in afghanistan Going Forward. That, it is not just about journalists and journalism. It as that presented sector is here, the media is more than just good newscasts. It is entertainment. It is informing. It is storytelling. In that spirit i think that the effort we have seen over the last 12 years by many different countries, different different support systems, has been much broader than trying to provide freedom of speech and the news. That, for me, is job one. It is also helping the media to become a full part of the countrys culture and its strength. In that spirit i wanted to show a seven minute clip from a wonderful new documentary produced by a Young Australian filmmaker. Some of you may have seen this. To broaden the discussion, he recep and minutes from the network. A documentary focused on television and some of the broader issues of journalism, of women, and other topics that are important. Focuses on a particular television show. Roll the film. Them right here it is very ambitious. Them our instructions once our instructions was this is it was such a huge production. It was shooting on the streets of kabul. They have [indiscernible] caught him. Every shot getting faster and faster. Thought oure we actor was dead. It was frightening. , the ministryer of agriculture want to to delay everything you shot down today. We packed up our entire shoot in five minutes. When we were doing eagle four, we had cuts and burns, you name it. I asked what can you do and we had a chat about it. She said she would practice. I think it is only hurting from a set toght afghanistan to a set in any other country without any problem. She is just fabulous. Cool x clacks we were trying to lift the profile of the Afghanistan Security forces. We cant guarantee people safety. They need to know that once the , thatational forces go their Security Forces are adequate enough. Cool x the idea was to promote to promote integrity and creating heroes you can trust. 76 say attitudes have there wasr the better a noticeable spike in recruitment. It was highly successful. Cool x people are going to have to know the police are working for them. Great. Never let it be said we dont have entertainment value here at this conference. The afghanistan stoned have a sense of the theatrical. To read aso like quote before i introduce the panel. This was by dora townsend. This is in foreign affairs. Wrote when western Legal Technicians are asked about these programs they them as adismiss sideshow of institutional say building. Audience surveys suggest the shows have made a powerful impression, comparing their own police, lawyers, and judges to the more virtuous ones on he mentionslevision another show, crime scenes. He says producers receive hundreds of photos calls asking authorities to look into i just want to broaden its slightly. What we talk about when we talk about the afghan medium . We have a strong panel to talk about this with us. Bergen, director of the National Security program of the new american foundation, author of manhunt, the longest war, the , ama bin laden that i knew personal friend we Work Together at cnn and have been friends for decades. Next to him, the director of the. Fghan analyst Safety Committee in his own right, a distinguished afghan journalist and patriot. He has worked for the Washington Post, New York Times, pnr. He also understands the western media and its oddities. Left, the director and founder of the afghan news. One of the bedrock afghan need yet institutions that has been founded in the last 12 years. Strength for so many other media organizations. Have good Radio Televisions if you dont have a service or two. Those of us in radio know thats too well. We simply cannot cover everything. That is impossible but it is amazing how much they do and the quality of the work. Ofis also the 2008 winner the press Freedom Award of the committees for journalists, and other great afghan patriot. To the far end, from the united at bbc, james dean action. He represents competition in a way. James worked with others on probably the test survey and study on this date of the afghan media not too long ago. He has some interesting findings from that and strong views about what we need to do Going Forward. By let me start with you. How strong is the afghan media at this point and how worried are you about its future . Thank you. Thank you for organizing this important event. Negative e from a i hear some positive things. Peoplewords of american , i am so government happy. We believe we are not alone. We have support. Start one of the. Ecent examples is one story barbershop, i was he bought a house for a family of four 6,000. Fighting he sold it for 4000. If we did not have an accepted he says that if we have not an acceptable election it is mean his future will be he wanted to keep those 400,000 4000 in order to transfer his family from one side to the other. Now our future is different. It does not mean our future will be dangerous. Our journalists will be worried and our people will be worried. These two things are very important and it is like a bridge for us. We had a good achievement and afghan media. If we compare during the taliban they were just tell a band radio stations. Now we have 1000 Media Outlets. Is how do weion keep that . How are we learning that . I hope if we have a good election, i think our future will be well and good. Think we can have good success in our country. Same question. How strong is the afghan media, how important is it to the country, how worried are you about its future . It is very strong if we look at the fact that todays afghan media is only the product of the last 10 years. As rally have media we only had one radio during the taliban and two papers which were so lowly being used for propaganda purposes. In terms of highlighting priorities for the central government, in terms of putting human rights, promoting women in terms of holding the politicians accountable, it is very strong. We have to look at the afghan media before 2001. Extremely important for afghanistan because afghanistan on the path started of democracy. We will not be able to have much success in Building Democracy in the country. It has its own weaknesses. One of the important weaknesses of the Afghan Government is lack of Strategic Vision towards immediate outlets. That will lead to the bankruptcy of a significant number of Media Outlets. It is because there will be an amount of reduction in a major sorts major source of funding. That is what i want to get to. How worried are you looking forward about the future of the afghan media and you have any sense of how many statio