Geithner: Economy not doing fine

Geithner said Congress should pass Obama’s jobs measures, such as increased infrastructure and education spending, and commit to extending the expiring middle-class tax rates, and stop threatening not to increase the debt ceiling.

He said Obama does not support simply extending the Bush-era tax rates for the middle class into next year and that Congress and the White House need the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and spending cuts set to hit at the end of 2012 to govern.

“We need to take advantage of the incentive created … to force this town to confront and take on the things that divide us now, so that we can go ahead and govern,” he said. He said Congress should embrace a balanced deficit plan at the end of the year including corporate tax reform.

On a political note, Geithner said that Wall Street is donating heavily to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney because “they believe they will get a stronger hearing on weakening reforms if Republicans have a stronger hand in Washington.”