Tim Geithner: “I believe that what Congress did at that point was absolutely essential to hold this system together.”

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

If Congress were to choose to try to defer everything... that would be very damaging to the interests of the country.

When Timothy Geithner says today that he's willing to go over the cliff, he's saying it because, yes, it's posturing. But he's also saying it because he means it.

I do not believe there is a credible argument to make that uncertainty about our fiscal deficits or uncertainty about the design of regulation in Washington today is having a material adverse effect on the American economy today.