On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made the rounds on all five major Sunday morning talk shows to support President Barack Obama’s argument that taxes must be hiked on the top two percent of income earners.
“The Republicans have said for the first time in decades, if I’m not mistaken — the leaders of the Republican Party — that they are prepared to raise taxes as part of a deal that helps reduce our long-term deficits,” Geithner said on Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Now, what they haven’t said to us is how far they’re willing to go both on rates and revenues. And that’s something we’re going to need to see from them if we’re going to have an agreement.”
The treasury secretary later told host Candy Crowley that without those hikes, there would be no deal.
GEITHNER: I mean, Candy, there — there’s not going to be an agreement without rates going up. There’s not going to be —
CROWLEY: So you’ll go off the fiscal cliff if it will — if the Republicans say, sorry, no way are we going to raise rates for the — on the wealthy. You guys are willing …
GEITHNER: If we’re —
CROWLEY: — to go off the fiscal cliff?
GEITHNER: If Republicans are not willing to let rates go back up — and we think they should go back to the Clinton levels, a time when the American economy was doing exceptionally well — then there will not be an agreement.