first, mr. singhknow that the treasury department is working closely with the department of state and the white house on a loan guarantee package for the ukraine. and you talked about it briefly in your opening statement. but i was wondering if you can discuss in more detail how we in congress can support and improve the capacity of the imf to provide guaranteed, a guaranteed loan package? >> thank you for your question, congressman. so the imf in any assistance package for ukraine that's going to be credible needs to play a central role. and the best thing we can do right now is to maintain our leading voice at the institution, the imf, that is going to be at the heart of the assistance effort. if we don't meet our basic commitments to fund the imf and pass the coda reforms, our voice may diminish. now, there's a second reason. passing the coda reform provides the imf with more financing flexibility, particularly in the case where ukraine could need a bridge, a short-term assistance package, as a mea

first, mr. singh, i know that the treasury department is working closely with the department of state and the white house on a loan guarantee package for the ukraine. have you ta you talked about it briefly in your opening statement. i wonder if you can discussi in more detail how we in congress can support and improve the capacity of the imf to provide guaranteed -- a guaranteed loan package. >> thank you for your question, congressman. so the imf and any assistance package for ukraine that's going to be credible needs to play a central role. and the best thing we can do right now is to maintain our leading voice at the institution, the imf, that is going to be at the heart of the assistance effort. if we don't meet our basic mission to fund it, the support may diminish. passing the reform provides the imf with more financing flexibility. particularly in the case where ukraine could need a bridge, a short-term assistance package, as a means to get to a larger agreement with the imf. now, the imf's on

mr. singh can take the second. i don't know, mr. ruben if you want to take the first. >> certainly congressman. thank you. on the question of ukraine nato cooperation ukraine has been a member of nato's partnership of peace for two decades and we havece very ex-extensive positie experience working together working with ukraine on training, improving readiness, on all sorts of questions that relate to building a modern military, civilian military control. that is something that we certainly hope to continue. ukraine has a mission to nato. we have regular meetings with the ukraine nato council. wen just held the session in light of current events at ukraine's request. so we have a very strongss partnership through theed partnership for peace. through the nato-ukraine council and we want to continue to develop thatng with the new government and in the future with the newna president. >> specifically with the membership action plan, i can't see, in the very near future i can see the need to address this issu te frankly because ourer opt

it's for mr. singh. on page three of your testimony you talk about the imf and what is needed is an economic adjustment program that eliminates unsustainable economic imbalances and poorly targeted government subsidies. i was wondering if you could be more specific as to what those subsidies are, what needs to be changed and also, is the imf support contingent on that. >> thank you, congresswoman. that's precisely how the imf works. its sis assistance is contingent upon reforms being made. the three core forms that i referenced, number one, there has been an unsustainable build up in physical spending over the years in ukraine. that needs to be addressed. number two, there are truly massive energy subsidies that have been a part -- >> subsidies to companies or to the population? >> to the population, to tariffs paid for heating and gas and so forth. that's led to coop assumption of energy that's among the highest in the region. >> would you be concerned that some of the reforms might cause problems, diss

it mrs. singh is proven elusive of how she would fix. it she said i have not voted for it and i am open to making changes for it. >> if she wins today, is it that tell you that obama care will not be as big of an issue in the mud terms. i know you say she didn't vote for it and she didn't think it was a referundum on obama care, but her opponent david jolly, thinks that it is. >> well, it points to the success that democrats might have if they distance themselves from president obama as much as she has done. it would be bad news for the democrats that voted for. it they don't have the ability and she said i was not there and don't hold me responsible. i will go and fix it. something that john roberts said. it is important. he mentioned 125,000 people cast an absentee ballot. that is 27 percent of the electorate. two percent over all have voted today. that might be 4 or 5 percent of the electorate. we'll get a quick indication of how it will go. so many of the votes, are going to have been cast early. as of late last week, 113,000 votes w

and mr. singh patrick's day himself is still here. >> we stay hydrated for the big holiday. sympatric day is today. we're talking about good weather. partly sunny skies. 21 degrees right now. at old sink bears cool its 21. much cooler in the locations. here is to sublet radar. expect to be dry. partly sunny conditions as the cloud cover comes in from the west. tomorrow things change in a big way. warmer temperatures on tuesday. tomorrow we will hit 51. temperatures will fall into wednesday with the chance of rain and snow. those temperatures are starting to creep up. >> coming up, investigators look into how a plane lost part of its wing in mid flight. >> details on the new marijuana law to protect children. and a man dressed like rambo goes on to a shooting spree in the florida bar. >> a stranded dogs found from a northern california cliffsome sr lines jet when it lost a piece of its wing in mid flight. flight 24-12 was en route from orlando to atlanta when the wing's access panel sheared off. and land without incident. inspectors will try to determine what made the wing pa

mr. singh is the deputy assistant secretary for europe and eurasia at the u.s.tment of the treasury. he advises the leadership at the department of the treasury and the white house on global markets. and without objection, the witnesses full prepared statements are going to be part of the record. i'm going to encourage you all to summarize and use your time to present your viewpoints. afterwards, the members will have five calendar days to submit statements and questions and materials for the record. without objection, as member offices were notified last night, in light of our time constraint, mr. engel and i are suggesting we limit to three minutes per member to help maximize participation of all the members this morning. if i could now go to our ranking member, mr. engel, whose family is originally from the ukraine, mr. engel from new york. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. deputy assistant rubinrubin. thank you for appearing before the committee today. and for your t