NEW YORK—Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin discussed jobs, raising the debt ceiling, economic growth, and other financial topics at the Mariott Marquis in Times Square on Monday.
“We need to create more jobs,” said Wolin, “and more quickly.”
Broadcast journalist Charlie Rose posed questions to Wolin, including asking what the Treasury Department thinks about the financial theory of cutting spending to expedite growth.
“It’s just not consistent with the realities we see,” said Wolin. “Cutting spending is not going to put people back to work.”
He emphasized putting people like construction workers, firefighters, and teachers back to work, and focusing on long-term as well as short-term growth.
The president’s proposed jobs bill has been viewed by private sector forecasters, and they said it would create 2 million jobs. “We will continue to press Congress,” Wolin said. He referenced a national monument recently being erected as an example of putting Americans back to work in local communities, most likely referring to the much criticized Martin Luther King monument in Washington, D.C.
The discussion was part of a daylong annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
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