i'd like to ask mr. bixby what he thinks of the idea as far as helping to reduce some of the social security expenses of, one , means testing the social security plan; two, increasing the social security income tax, which you've mentioned instead of having it at 110,000, go up to 250,000 and increasing the social security age by one year. thank you. >> guest: i think that sounds like a pretty good plan. i'd vote for it. i think that, you know, like the federal government itself, i think that the long-term problems of social security are going to have to be addressed by some combination of reduced promised benefits and that doesn't necessarily mean reduced absolute benefits and new revenue. so i think that the combination that you mentioned probably is where things will eventually end up once the political system gets around to dealing with it. look at it this way, much easier to phase those -- it's much easier to phase those changes in over time than to wait until you've got a crisis and have to do it suddenly

caller: good morning, mixed or bixby -- mr. bixby. why are we debating whether to put that top tax bracket back up to 90%, where was with eisenhower, or backup to 70% before ronald reagan took over. we would have all this money to rebuild our bridges and roads and take care of the needs of this country. this national debt, too much money is going back to the wealthy. you have to borrow money to pay the bills. guest: yeah. people were not paying that. that was the thing. if you look at revenues as a percentage of the economy. andet about the rates whatever loopholes there have been. revenues going back 40 years or more have consistently been 18%nd 70% of the economy, of gdp -- 17% of the economy. what has changed is the rate structure and there have been things that have changed. haserms of the money that come in, it has been fairly consistent as a percentage of the economy. went it has gotten over 19% is where we have come to where the budget is balanced or even in surplus. norm is notthe sufficient as a norm to fund our budget. that