make sure we can show the world that we're willing as a country to start to make progress bringing down our long-term deficits. >> raising taxes to pay down the deficit or cut the deficit and begin to rein in the exploding debt is an idea that's gaining traction. alan greenspan says, don't just raise taxes on wealthy americans, raise taxes on everybody. but what about cutting spending? >> experts say you have to do both. the head of the president's fiscal commission says he finds it interesting how the british did it. in their debt reduction plan they leaned more heavily on spending, 75% on spending cuts and 25% in tax increases. so we're not at all there in terms of making that decision but the tax cuts -- the reason alan greenspan said that was we can't a afford the $3 trillion to extend them for everybody or the $2.2 trillion to extend them for most people. if we do expend bush tax cuts