they didn't know what they needed to provide, and they had to provide by mail. the irs rarely acknowledges that they got your mail, and often the next notice is that, we disagree with you and here you have to go to kax tort if you want to breast. we're testing something right now and i'm really pushing it right now which is, to the caller's point, to get like a virtually. they can schedule an opinion. but they can have this so they're not shuttled from one person to another person to another pen. >> i would i would also say that young person is responsible.

like i said, individual audits are done that way. there is no one employee responsible for that case and no employee on that case. >> good morning. >> caller: yeah, hi, how are you? i'm calling because i'm an avid watcher and i've seen mrs. olson on a number of times. but i experienced a terrible reaction and had to go to my representative, and i was a constituent and she assisted me. i was assigned a person in jacksonville, mr. jones, who really helped me and deserves k accolades for working with me and a taxpayer. i had called the tax office, i had gone down in person, and to get no assistance, so i finally thought i would call the national taxpayers' advocacy

program. i didn't get any help, but thank goodness for my representative who was able to. >> i'm sorry about that. the phone line that we have on the screen is actually the number for my employees. the number that is listed of other materials are actually not my employees, they're employees of the irs that just answer the phones and are supposed to help solve problems before they come to us, if they can. so i'm glad that you ultimately got help. a lot of our cases do come from congressional offices. i can only say that we deal with about 300,000 cases a year, and we do have about a 75% relief rate. which means that about three out of every faw, so they better get ret leaf they're asking for when they came to our office. i'm glad that ultimately you got

the good result. >> i'll read that line aloud for those listening on the radio. 1-877-275-8271. it's the number for the irs advocate case line. phil, republican in em por pori kansas. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i don't really have any beef with the irs. what's the point? i'm just one of these around the country that feels they're just sort of resigned to their fate. as far as the tax code itself, how on earth are we going to untangle it? it's 73,000 pages, and you just mentioned that 17 out of 17 tax preparers, 17 made significant errors. i would suspect if i had the irs do my taxes, probably you would get the same figure. this thing is so tangled.

i think if we try to untangle it, a couple things will happen, those lawyers who do tax stuff, they're going to descend to washington, d.c. to protect their interests. when the debt gets so high, i can going to get either very simple or very complicated again. >> nina olson, this profile of you on the christian science monitor shows you helping a -- the problem at hand was an individual retired. even hard for you. >> yes, and i do tax returns for me and my family, tax returns for my family. we can take a lot of lessons from 1986 where we really did

get major tax reform. but it took about six years of hard work and four years of intensive work. getting the plant shot down, going to the drawing board. about two years of really hard legislative work and it died several deaths. somebody said to me at one point, bill gale from brookings, said to me at one point, the tax reform that's going to happen that will really work, is something that every day looks at as impossible. so something that's going to happen is what we view as impossible today. my argument is, we just don't have any choice. we have to get comprehensive tax reform. and i do think that what's

required is enormous political will and political will on the part of the administration and political will on the part of congress. and more importantly, and this is where i've sort of been trying to generate some support just for the context of health reform. political will on the part of taxpayers themselves, on our web site, tax park taxpayers can put in their tax reform suggestions. i've asked them two questions. i have asked them to identify what tax benefit they receive that they would be willing up in the sbz -- asked them about what they think about the code. people tend to forget that the vast majority of the benefits, where the real numbers are, are in all the little provisions. they're not in the special

interest provision thaz t go to oil and gas. they're in the special provisions that most of us benefit from. the mortgage deduction, the retirement income exclusioned, and if you look at all those things, that's where the money and, and that's where we need greater simplification. the congress won't have the political will. neither the administration. >> coming, tax mcged don. these are cost the government the most money for it now to be overwhelmingly popular. the. corporate tax rates are smaller but the biggest corporate tax

breaks are often popular, too, like research and development. tim geithner talked about this issue on george stefanopolous. let's take a look at him. >> of course, we would sign today the milgd class to protect them today, protect them against any risk that the washington people can't took. of course, you could do that in an election year. they have to be to come together in the lame duck session before the end of the year, and i pus together a balanced to prevent that kind of damage to the economy. >> treasury secretary timothy geithner on this weet yesterday, talking about tax mcged don.

>>, lei and the irs prepare for a tax code and we don't know how it's come out yet. >> i don't care, these provisions occur with every single year. what event happened was that on december 27, congress passes a ivs when we're programming our computers and designing our forms. so we have to delay the filing fees and once they passed a bill in december in order to have the computers reprogrammed, and when that happens, we have seen in every gel filed dos kind of complexity and delay and i'll

ur. dana, david, independent line. >> thank you in 2010, i transferred for my wife and i direct transfer to another institution irs money. about $38,000. all the paperwork was done, it was a $10,000 ir form. yes, they had all this information but i took this to arrest distributions and they want me to pay toxz on. it makes you wonder how they can. how does a station do this? hold on a second. >> david, we have to go. >> what's your last question?

>> first i would need to see the 1099 and make sure the boxes were all correctly checked. they have a computer matching system, and i think maybe the boxes aren't checked or the bokz are checked and the irs still screws it up, and then, of course, the burden falls on the taxpayer to send on in this bother aren't able to get this very solve on cspan and we can take the someone whoik make the right adjustment. we've written a lot about these ira rollovers, but sometimes they're not administrated properly, and we've made proposals about having reasonable cause so people don't get hit with these penalties. and they can when they've done

everythi everything. there's a lot of room for improvement there. >> two twooets. hope hole. >> if we've delayed after a certain point in time, you do get interest. the way that congress rong and the interest rate that pe pa you. thaet the law, it not the irs. >> nina wol son, thanks so much for joining us. she is the taxpayer advocate in the united states working out of the irs office. coming up on cspan-3, next a discussion on energy security and reducing u.s. dependence on foreign oil. after that a house hearing on preventing prescription drug

abuses and use 40s. they will hold a hearing on racial pro filing. senate will investigate the anti-terrorism laws. watch live coverage gekt under way at 10:00 a.m. eastern on cspan-3. jury selection began this week in the retrial of former major league pitcher roger clemens. he filed federal prosecutors with knowingly lying to congress, and in 2008 on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball. >> let me read to you what his wife says in her affidavit. hi, laura petit, do impose and state in 1999-2000, roger had to

take human growth hormones. you have said your conversation with mr. petit never happened. if that was true, why would laura petit remember andy telling her about the conversation? >> once again, i think he misremembers how it went. andy and my relationship was close enough to know. if he was knowingly knowing that i had taken hdh, we would have talked about the subject. he would have come to me to ask about the effects of it. >> watch this 2008 testimony on line at the c-span video library with over a quarter century of american politics and public affairs on your computer. a group of business

executives tried to find alternative energy and foreign oil. they talked about cost conservatives and electric cars. this is host bid the hudson institute here in washington. this is an hour and 25 minutes. >> good afternoon. welcome. i'm ken weinstein, president and ceo of hudson institute. on behalf of hudson institute and our partner for today's events, securing america's future energy, i'd like to welcome everyone to the betsy and walter stern conference center here at hudson. let me extend a special welcome to our cspan viewing audience and to those watching on line at hudson.org. before we get under way, let me make the standard announcement to ask everyone to kindly turn down the ringers on your cell phones -- let me say a few words about hudson institute.

hudson institute is a future-oriented, market-oriented market research policy organization that was founded in 1961 by the late herman kahn. central to our research agenda, since our founding has been work on natural resources, especially oil, and the role resources play in the global economy. kahn's view, and our view today, is that innovation and human ingenuity, when properly guided, can overcome resource scarcity and provide alternatives that enable us to be prudently optimistic about the future of america and the world. we are co-hosting today's event with securing america's future energy. safe was launched as an action-oriented, non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing america's oil dependence by advocating for comprehensive energy reform. safe has done extraordinary work at getting the energy security a

issue on the public agenda, thanks in part to its dynamic and strategic founder, safe's president, ceo robbie diamond, who is with us today. in 2006, under robbie's leadership, safe formed the leadership council. they were dedicated to reducing the u.s. oil dependence. it includes four men who are with us today. all are former marines who care deeply about our country and it's future. and i'll introduce them by the order in which they're seated. frederick w. smith, and co-chair man, fred hit knees to information. fedex is a 38,000 logistical

company serving 32 countries with 677 employees, handling more than 6 million shipments every day. he is known as the market of free enterprise and free trade. bob lutz, the former vice chairman of the chrysler corporation. the auto industry made him a legend largely focused on product development that included senior positions at general motors, ford, bmw and culminated with being the vice chairman of general motors. general james conway retired a 34th kmorcommander in the unite states marine corps. he served as a member of the joint chiefs in a 40-year

distinguished career under active duty. under his leadership, the corps grew to 315,000 active reserve which he is responsible for organizing, equipping and training. and he was especially responsible for bringing weapons systems into the marine corps. lastly, j.p. kelly. general kelly's extraordinarily distinguished 37-year career which ended in 1987, he commanded marine organizations through every echelon. he also served as a member of the joint chiefs. gentlemen, all four of you have been leaders all your lives. we're particularly honored that you continue to be leaders. take me through the future of the national security company in a new way. following their opening remarks which will come in the form of responses to questions, these four individual -- distinguished individuals have graciously

agreed to take questions from the audience. as moderator, i will begin by asking some questions of our panelists before turning it over to our conference center audience here for questions and you can also submit questions via now, one last note, i should note how pleased we are to be working with safe and hudson. very different kinds of organizations, but it is significant that we are working together to promote dialogue on energy and public policy. it is an organization -- to address those challenges. you can learn more at secureenergy.org. hudson instituted the research policy organization with some diversity of viewpoints on energy policy, to put it in least. though our scholars are

unanimous in promoting further energy exemployer ratiploiempl imported oil to the belief that a significant number of economic -- are captured by the current gas tax and chris sans looks at industrial policy in the auto industry and why it is not solved our energy problems sustain bly. new papers on energy are available at hudson.org and chris's paper is forthcoming. first now to fred smith. this is a very distinguished group of individuals who have come together to talk about our nation's security. how would you say our nation's energy is insecure today? >> first, let me update a couple of numbers there.

fedex, mention of that earlier, about a $43 billion company that operates about $95,000 and the reason i emphasize the number of vehicles we operate and your figure on the planes was pretty close, but they've gotten bigger over time. we came to this issue a long time ago. when fedex was first beginning operations in 1973, in short order, we were faced with the first air boil em bar bobargo a fall of 1973 where in response to u.s. actions in the middle east to support israel, oil was withheld from the market and the united states had begun to be a

significant importer and the government had to allocate oil. for 40 years, we watched it and the significance is over this period of time is that every major economic attraction or recession was either coincident webbed or precipitate eby a significant run-up in fuel prices. beginning until 21st century, the landscape changed as a result of the united states' imports of its petroleum needs reaching almost 60% at the zenith and the emergence of china and india as increasing

users of petroleum as they had large percentages of their population moving into the middle class and wanting to have the same lifestyle that we did. so, it has become over the last several years after nuclear proliferation and after weapons of mass destruction issued the largest single national security and a national economic risk that the united states faces. the energy security leadership counsel is an organization as you noted that's composed of four star generals and admirals and ceos of companies like fedex and using a great deal of energy. we use over 1 billion 500 million gallons a year to put that into perspective. and we felt that the united

states did not have a strategic policy regard iing energy and t failure to have a strategic policy could lead the united states into a significant confrontation. and we came up with five recommendations as to what the united states should do to reduce its depend ens on imported petroleum, representing 58% of the u.s. balance of payments deficit and many of those dollars went to countries which wish us ill, whose values are not the same in the united states, but who controlled all the oil markets and cartel.

our recommendations transcend political labels. number one was to maximize united states oil and gas production in whatever matter feasible. number two was to diversify transportation powered by electrifying short haul and light duty transportation with the vast improvements of lithium battery technology. three, to utilize natural gas as a power supply for heavy duty, over the road and central fuel vehicles. four, to reinstitute fuel efficiency standards, which was done in 2007 under the bush

administration and last, continue biofuel and research to come up with cost effective scaleable biofuel. so that sets the stage i think for the recommendations in the lc that you may want to discuss. >> before the recommend daation let's go back to the national security issue. let me ask general conway about how he would characterize the dependence on oil, particularly, the military's role of producting global oil simplies. >> let me answer your question by giving you just a brief history of our evolution. in 1936, united states produced 99% of its oil retirement.

by 1986, when i was a young major and visited the middle east for the first time, we went aboard the command ship. at that point, the commander in the middle east was a navy two-star and he and his staff were embarked aboard the u.s.s. la salle. at that point, our requirement was about 27%. today, as fred mentioned, it's somewhere between 50 and 60%. and it's that impact on our nation and particularly our nation's economy, our nation's decision make iing that puts us risk. the problem is our enemies ek nuys that and it is the strategy, the philosophy, of extremists who would attack our country and will continue to do so. they believe that they cannot beat us in the field, but that they can bring us to our news through manipulation. control, destruction, having

impact on the cost of this nation. to the degree they can bankrupt us, that would then make us unavailable to react. so it is that potential for manipulation that causes us concern from a national security perspective and i can assure you, because i've been there, when the joint chiefs of staff sit around the table and talk about various options in any scenario these days, it involves the middle east high on considerations as you look at courses of action. our impact on our national economic picture. that has never been the case before. previously, that's always been sort of a sigh and concern that we would have as military men. someone else will worry ability those factors. but today, it is front and center. now, you should cover i guess the problem without at least offering a recommendation and in addition to the things that fred ha