we ve lost a number of fights. a little bit of punting there, too. we have. but i want to get to the point, and i think the fundamental question for the democrats was, i have for chuck schumer and the president and others is, should we at some point actually balance our budget? and if you re going to do so, how are you going to do that? because at least we re putting something on paper and introducing it. democrats haven t done that in the senate for now close to four years. what is going to be the big ticket? it s not going to be obama care which means the message is there s got to be some big ticket item that is going to be in place that will balance the budget. obama care is not going to be it because you don t have the votes for that. we do who says that we have to balance the budget? lots of economists say that we don t. but this is a complete and utter waste of time. that it s much better to get the economy moving so more people are employed. you bring in more reven
people s innicomes or wages. our savings rate, which was running at 8% for years and years, between 8 and 10rks fell 2% or less, and if you look at countries, those who state rate. they have a reasonable savings rate, not necessarily high but reasonable savings rate, 8% to 10%, they don t consume everything they save for the future. and their governments don t carry debt. so we have to we have to step up to that. if we want to be great nation, we have to address our fiscal challenges. at zero interest rate, i m afraid encourages consumption. why would you hold on and save your money when you get .02% in the bank? that s why i say i m not for
but first up the chances of peace in the middle east after the latest round of speeches by prime minister netanyahu and president obama. i ll be joined by tom friedman of the new york times who is just back from the middle east. now, here s my take for this week. we ve just gone through an arcane debate about whether barack obama said anything new when he called for an israeli/palestinian settlement based on 1967 borders with mutually agreed upon land swaps. in fact, that has been the working assumption of all negotiating parties, america, israel and the palestinian authority, for over 20 years. it is what the camp david talks of 2000 were based on. it s what elmerit s talks were based on. the real shift in u.s. policy was president obama publicly condemning the palestinian strategy to seek recognition as a state from the u.n. general assembly in september. instead of thanking obama for this, prime minister netanyahu chose to stage, in the words of the former israeli di