is that there might have been moments in time when that took some precedence and where there wasn t this commitment that you had in the s & l crisis. yes, the concern about the fragility of the financial markets was real and was a driving concern, but i think what you have now, martin, is a situation where policymakers say, look, we saved the system. it didn t go down. we didn t have another great depression, a, and, b, you also have a situation where they re now repaying the t.a.r.p. that s a good thing, yes, but it doesn t take into account these moral issues of accountability and main street which, as you pointed out at the top of the show, is still hurting. gretchen morgenson of the new york times. thank you for joining us. who is preparing to flee
years the deficit went down. if you reverse that and impose tax hikes, are you not making a big risk? first of all you re talking about letting tax cuts on people earning more than $250,000 expire. the taxes go um. let me be clear. you re not talking about raising taxes on people earning no i m talking about the top 1 or 2% of income earners. that s a tax hike. let me be very clear the deficit went up when george bush was president. it didn t go down. you can pick your time frame but right after the tax cuts, it staple late activity in the economy, receipts to the treasury went up and the deficit went down. we had a surplus when
the board cut in taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. i m not talking about a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were eminent. nor am i talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm. wow, now president kennedy slashed the top marginal tax rate. millions of jobs were created and revenue to the federal government, lower taxes. it didn t go down. it increased. reag r here s what president reagan said back in 1981. if the tax cut goes to you, the american people, in the third year, that money returned to you won t be available to the congress to spend. and that, in my view, is what