all this as a big battle brews over what to do about the growing decifit. take a look at that number, folks. whether or not lawmakers should green light plans to raise the debt ceiling is a very big question facing lawmakers and facing our guest right now, peter marici is former secretary of commerce at the trade commission, and jeffrey frenkel served under president clinton s council of economic advisers and is joining us from harvard today. nice to have you both. let s talk about this debt kraoeg. jeffrey, first with you, under the current circumstances and what you see in the economy, is this a necessary evil, do we need to and have to raise the debt ceiling? i hope anybody talking about this understands that to say we re not going to raise the debt ceiling is talking about a tactic, you re putting you re pulling a pin on a hand grenade and saying i m going to blow us all up if we don t get what we want. to illustrate, the budget