“I think the (presidential) candidates know how serious it is. I think they’re trying to avoid it in part because it is so consequential and serious, and the ideas that would be put forward are unattractive to some people.” Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
The U.S. is heading towards fiscal disaster and no one in Washington is doing anything about it, the authors of the Simpson-Bowles reform plan and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CNBC Thursday.
“People are never going to understand how critical this particular time in history is,” said Erskine Bowles, the North Carolina businessman and co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. “We have $7.7 trillion worth of economic events that are going to hit America in the gut in December, and in Washington they’re doing nothing about it.”
Bowles’ co-chair on the commission was former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who said political culture in Washington is preventing any action to address what is known as the “fiscal cliff.”
“They’re both in this,” Simpson said of the warring Democratic and Republican parties. “They worship the god of re-election.”
Wall Street titan Blankfein said resolving the conflict would go a long way toward rejuvenating confidence in the financial markets.
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