Tim Geithner: “You are going to need Democrats and Republicans to come together and propose ways to deal with this.”

You cannot govern a country if you commit never to raise taxes on anybody, because things change, wars happen, crises happen.

It's critically important. I'll give you an example of how to--if the Congress extends those tax cuts that go to 2 percent of the most fortunate Americans in the country, we have to go borrow $1 trillion over 10 years.

The basic sense that you see across the country that the political institutions in this country are not up to the challenges we face, unable to act, unable to solve problems, is absolutely weighing on confidence.

If Congress does not act on these tax provisions or on the investments and infrastructure things, then what happens to the American economy? What happens is that every American who has a job will see their taxes go up by $1,000 on average…