and zanny minten beddoes the economic analysis of "the economist."you look at this chart, the deficit essentially goes up a lot during the financial crisis and its aftermath and it's now down essentially to what it was under the bush administration where you were at one point chairman of the council of economic advisors. it would seem to vindicate the people who say, look, the reason the deficit went up a collapse of tax revenues more than anything else and we're back now, now that the economy is growing, down to a completely manageable place. so, all the scare stuff about the debt was unfair. >> well, of course, it is good news that the deficit has fallen, but before we celebrate with champagne, a couple big problems. if you look at the ten-year numbers, they didn't move very much at all. in other words, the deficit gets better in the near term, but continues to get worse. >> thets because medicare more than anything else. >> correct. we still have a long-term entitlement problem that is really a bad. not only raises the deficit, but threatens to cr