We know the patient is going to get well. I mean, the emergency treatment was successful but it was one heck of an attack and one like the patient very seldom experienced in a long, long lifetime and so the recovery period is long. And we're in it now and we should, in my book, feel extremely grateful. There was only one party that could have treated that patient, and that was government. They had the ability to stem what was otherwise going to be an implosion of the American economy and they did it.And it's slow coming back.
Should we be more grateful to the government than, perhaps, the American public is right now given the fact that you say they rescued us truly from the brink?
Yeah, I think so. I mean it when that happened, I made the judgement two judgements. One, only government could save us and the government would. I mean that it was so clear. But I can think of other officials in the past, who really wouldn't have either maybe the knowledge or the guts to act.But we owe, in my view and I know a lot of people won't feel this way. But Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Sheila Bair, they're heroes in my book. They ,that doesn't mean they did everything perfectly. Nobody can do everything perfectly. But when ,when we had what I called that economic Pearl Harbor, they were out the next day with the battleships, you know, whatever equipment they had and they got more equipment as they went along.But they did the right things.
You've been a huge supporter of Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, calling him a hero. He warned this week about the ballooning deficit. He also said we can't raise taxes now and we can't cut spending now but we have to be aware of how serious the problem is.You are take on that?
We certainly shouldn't raise taxes on anybody except the very rich. I think we should raise taxes on the very rich and I think maybe we should cut taxes for the middle class, upper middle class or lower middle class.
Cut them more than the Bush Tax Cuts?
Yeah ,it could well be. I believe that,in terms of the.We are taking in about 15 and a fraction percent of GDP in income in the United States. That isn't enough. We going to have to get more money from somebody.Now, the question is do we get more money from the person that's going to serve me lunch today or do we get it from me?I think we should get it from me and I have a lower tax return, counting payroll taxes, than anybody in my office and I don't have a tax shelter. I just follow the, I just take the form and fill out the numbers. And I think that's very wrong. And I think that if we going to get money and we going to need money. I mean we are taking in enough money at the federal government level. And there is spending cuts to be done, I'm sure of that. But we need more revenue, too.And, you know, there is only a few places to get it. You get it from corporations or you get it from individuals. And there's, you know.If we're gona get from individuals, it shouldn't be the bottom 98 %. It should be more from people of this heart.
