to get some of the other party to go along with him and he has to keep his own party in line. that s what leadership is all about. and you can t sit there and say i m going to do everything at once. you ll never get anything done. he has made a step. he has opened the door. and i think now it s incumbent upon him to keep working together with the republicans and democrats and the next thing will be tougher, as you point out. it s easy to reduce taxes, very hard to reduce expenses. is there a concern that when, really, people look at this, this is a two-year extension. 2012. hard to believe a politician is not going to vote in an election year to extend tax cuts. does it send a signal that we re not serious about tackling the long-term debt picture? no. i think that s one of the ways he will have to try to get on the agenda. you have this commission, well-run commission, smart people. they come up with some ideas and then congress doesn t even want to consider them. that s disappoin
championing an agreement that adds $1 trillion to the debt. the bottom line is unless he does this, he s not going to get a chance to do the next step. you know, the president has got to get some of the other party to go along with him and he has to keep his own party in line. that s what leadership is all about. and you can t sit there and say i m going to do everything at once. you ll never get anything done. he has made a step. he has opened the door. and i think now it s incumbent upon him to keep working together with the republicans and democrats and the next thing will be tougher, as you point out. it s easy to reduce taxes, very hard to reduce expenses. is there a concern that when, really, people look at this, this is a two-year extension. 2012. hard to believe a politician is not going to vote in an election year to extend tax cuts. does it send a signal that we re not serious about tackling the long-term debt picture? no. i think that s one of the ways he will have to
does it send a signal that we re not serious about tackling the long-term debt picture? no. i don t think it does that. i think we are not serious in tackling the long-term debt problem. i think that s one of the ways he will have to try to get on the agenda. you have this commission. well-run commission. some smart people. they come up with some ideas. and then congress doesn t even want to consider them. that s disappointing. on the other hand, eventually, they re going to have to face some of these issues because the chinese will stop buying our debt. we re going to get to the point where business has so little confidence they re not willing to expand. there s a lot of problems facing us down the road. some of these trust funds, like social security running out of money, medicaid and medicare taking over the whole economy. so, whether you like it or not, there s going to be a point where you have to stop kicking the can down the road. and this president, his job is, to some extent