Tim Geithner

We can't keep putting it off indefinitely.

I think it's inevitable that the Congress and the administration come together and reform, comprehensively, the U.S. tax code.

This is not beyond our capacity, as a country, to solve.

One of the most important things the Congress did is to say, 'We're going to establish a level playing field across banks and nonbanks.'

Those--the cuts are designed to starve those agencies of the ability--deny them the ability to enforce a set of basic, sensible protections for consumers and investors.

We're going to establish a level playing field across banks and nonbanks so that the business can't just shift to where there's no regulation.

The world still views the United States and the American political system as up to the challenge of delivering reforms that make our economy stronger and our fiscal position more sustainable.

It's very important to future economic growth. There is no alternative to doing that.

If you call into question the willingness of the Government of the United States to meet its obligations, you will shake the basic foundations of the entire global financial system.

It is inconceivable that America would do that.

It would raise, dramatically, the borrowing cost, permanently, for all Americans.

this ushers in a new era of openness and transparency for tax information between the United States and Panama.

Again, our overall objective, and this has to be our shared objective, is to have the private markets, banks and investors, bear more of the risk in housing finance, not less of the risk.

What the President proposed in his budget is a series of detailed changes to our resources and our commitments that would reduce our deficits from 10 percent of GDP to around 3 percent of GDP, which is primary balance.

If Congress were to legislate constraints on itself that was consistent with that deficit reduction path, that would be enormously helpful to sustaining the confidence in the United States and around the world that we are going to go back…

Our plan, as you know, is designed to create a housing finance system in which the Government's role is limited to robust oversight and consumer protection.

I can't improve on what you said. I very much welcome the role you have played over a long period of time in helping make sure the U.S. can participate in those important international initiatives.

There is a lot of confidence in the political will of this country to get ahead of this problem.

this idea that somehow you can minimize the pain to the country, minimize the damage to our credit and our credibility by, in effect, not meeting your obligations, some obligations, while you meet others is, I think, mistaken.

Well, I think what the American people should be worried about is that we have unsustainable deficits, and we need to bring them down.

We agree that we have to work together on a plan that Congress can enact that will start to deal with these very daunting, very formidable deficit challenges.

if you are providing guarantees, you need to charge for them. They need to be risk based, and they need to be fair in design.

the current process we use for making these choices does not work. It has not worked. It is completely dysfunctional.

Our deficits are too high. They are unsustainable and, left unaddressed, these deficits will hurt economic growth and make us weaker as a Nation.

We should not let the markets start to build any risk that Congress will not ultimately pass that increase we need.