raise taxes on wealthy people who already save for retiremen and give that people to people who are undersavedthat is not what we're saying at all. we'll use it in the big kitty and use it hower i want to use it. am i correct? >>ome programs the president wants to boost like head start, his own administration put out a study that it had no real effect on those children t wasn't even helping. it is very expensive federal day care program. we ought not to be wasting money on failed government programs any longer. gerri: rick, do you think it would make more sense, and i had people suggesthis to me recently, quite ait in fact, to raise limits on how much people can set aside for saving, instead of bringing it down? i mean that has been the policy for years now, as you say, okay if you're over 55 you can save even more. every year we seem to raise the limit. 17,500 for most folks you can set aside. why do we have limits? why not let people set money aside? let's face i that money goes back into the economy. they're investi through mutual funds in companies all ove the country, frankly all over the

we continue to undersave, underinvest in people, infrastructure, and capacity. get that together, then their ascendency will coincide with our decline. >> we've had periods like this before. >> yeah. >> i mean, you're optimistic we get it together or do you think we're the roman empire? >> no, look, i hope we get it together. what i don't see is a debate on the strategy -- >> how many people have been -- you do look at the past 3,000, 4,000 years, and how long do a leading civilization, they have a couple of hundred of years. >> we've had a good century. >> we've been there for a couple of hundred already. >> but the people that write about the rise and fall of great powers, they often look to nations that outstrip their capacity to save. they extend themselves militarily or economically. and then, ultimately, it just becomes hard to sustain. >> china was on top for a while, too. >> china, in a mid-19th century was the largest economy in the world, for sure. and they went through a very difficult and long period of time. >> they've got a lot of people. they have