Geither signals 'positive side' of Tea Party protests

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Sunday seemed to offer some praise for the "positive side" of the Tea Party movement, which protested this Thursday's income tax deadline.

When asked on NBC's Meet the Press about the movement's viability and force, Geithner noted one benefit of the recent string of demonstrations is an increased attention to fiscal issues, especially the federal deficit, that had been absent in the previous administration.

From the transcript:

DAVID GREGORY: Finally, before I let you go, as I mentioned it was tax day. You also saw these tea party rallies around the country. And it seems that their biggest grievance, those who show up to these rallies, have to do with taxes, with government spending, with the size of the deficit. How serious do you take those concerns? How viable a political force do you consider—

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Let --

DAVID GREGORY: -- the Tea Party to be?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: -- let me -- let me do the positive side of this. Okay? We've-- just been through eight years where people said -- many people said, ‘Deficits don't matter. We can -- we can pass huge tax cuts, pass huge new programs without paying for them.’ That debate has changed fundamentally. Now you don't hear people say anymore, ‘Deficits don't matter.’ You don't hear people saying that we can pass enormously—enormous expansion of government without paying for it. That's an important change. I think all Americans understand that our deficits are unsustainable. And I think that'll be helpful as we move to try to make the hard choices to bring them down again.”