piece unless you re looking at the whole package? that s why the president set up the commission. final question, quickly. when do you think we ll see a meaningful reduction in the unemployment rate? well, as you know, the unemployment rate is influenced not just by how many jobs are created, but also by people coming in from out of the labor force status. there s an official forecast that the government puts out. and we update it every six months. it s been a little better so far this year than it was forecast to be in february. but it s not nearly enough. having private sector job growth for 11 months and adding $1.2 million is a good start. but we ve got to do much more. this tax deal, according to private forecasters, goes a long way to up the growth rate. that s why the president is for it. that s why he insisted it will bring down unemployment? i think it will. but, look. deepest hole since 1929. it takes a while to get out of that. no question. we ll leave it there,
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
we cannot afford to do that. it would be a mistake. i agree there is some risk. but we are going to fight that. as i say, in 2012, we will have been growing our way out of this and those tax cuts will have to stand on their own merits, which they cannot. in the meantime, by making that two-year trade, we got things on the obama priority list twice as much as what s in those high-income tax cuts that are fundamentally important for the growth of the economy. is it a fundamental flaw that this compromise did not accompany long-term solutions to deal with the debt? i don t know that we could sort out the entire long-run solutions to the debt in the 20 days that remain before hundreds of millions of americans are about to see their taxes go up. the president created the fiscal commission. he believes that the medium and
they don t work and we ve all been publicly stating for a long time that they don t. but by trading that, we were able to get things that really matter for the economy. how can you show you re serious about long-term efforts to bring down the debt? that s the second part of your question. what i would emphasize there is that the fiscal commission, and others, highlight that it s medium and long-term fiscal consolidation and responsibility, which is their goal. you cannot reduce the deficit if the economy is not growing, period. they each have made clear that the short-run growth of the economy we should not be conflating medium-run deficit reduction with short run getting out of the recession. that s not the statement secretary geithner made in august. i don t know that that s true. secretary geithner has made that distinction. the language is plain, which is if you extend them i don t know what just before and just after. i didn t take it out of context. let me