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Revert back to what it was in the 1990s. we need do that. because we do need to address our long-term fiscal problems. our deficit is too high and our debt load too wide and we have to address that in part by higher taxes. in my view, addressing the long-term fiscal situation would be most appropriate by restraining spending growth but tax increases are part of that and tax increases on upper income individuals has to be part of that. when the economy is off and running i think we should raise rates. but not in 2011. i think the recovery that the point is still too fragile. >> bret: treasury s...

Washington. mark, you have this debate. seems like no debate about getting rid of the -- all of the tax cuts s. that a mistake as far as the fiscal house is concerned? >> no. i don't think so. i mean, i think at this point we have an agreement and important to extend the it is a cuts for folks that make less than 250k. having said that, i think everything should be on the table in the discussion with regard to what we do about our long-term fiscal problems, and as you know, the national fiscal commission and reports out in december and i think they need to consider everything, including the ta...

Productivity, fiscal problems, those would have been debates that would have structured bipartisan cooperation. for whatever reason, we fall into a big government versus small government debate. this is like a social script that puts all the republicans on the antigovernment mode, very polarized, strengthens the libertarian more polarized part of the party, let's use government to do this and that mode. you get this intense polarization which we've seen over the past year that tends to help republicans, by the way. it's created not only an end to the polarization, but magnified it. >> the pew ...

We're back with the roind table. a big question i've been thinking about, whether health care and intervention into the economy, economic stimulus or financial regulation, it is about this debate between the role of government in society, in the economy, in our lives generally. david brooks, you have been thinking about this a lot. your wrote in your column on friday, in the first year of the obama administration, the democrats either wittingly or unwittingly decided to put the big government versus small government debate at the center of american life. how is that playing out? >> not well i ...

Somewhere a bitterly divisive culture war and a bitterly divisive debate about iraq. other debates about opportunity, productivity, fiscal problems, those would have been debates that would have structured bipartisan cooperation. for whatever reason, we fall into a big government versus small government debate. this is like a social script that puts all the republicans on the antigovernment mode, very polarized, strengthens the libertarian more polarized part of the party, let's use government to do this and that mode. you get this intense polarization which we've seen over the past year that ...