Treasury Secretary Jamie Dimon: Don't Raise Taxes, Obama

Along with former Clintonite Larry Summers, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon seems to be getting serious attention as a possible treasury secretary if Barack Obama wins. Very serious. So what does Mr. Dimon believe about the way the world works? Here is an interesting bit from an appearance on the Charlie Rose show last summer:

ROSE: Should we be taxing the wealthy, or should we be taxing the middle class? And what is an appropriate way to engage this economy? Kennedy was famous for his tax cuts that led to increased revenue and everybody, even the Laffer people adopted that as the mantra.

DIMON: You have a very serious issue now, which is you are talking about helping the economy for the next six months to two years. You need—you can't raise taxes in light of that. But we also have, you know, a little bit of inflation and fear of inflation and, you know, if you have too much fiscal stimulation, your long-term rates will go up. So the policy should be reduce taxes a little bit now, provide some of this now, but have a serious, and I mean very serious plan to attack deficit spending going forward. Maybe you won't have all the negative effects of too much stimulus. You know, possibly some directed tax cuts in certain areas could also be helpful...[to] people who need the money, so people who pay a lot more for gas, for example. It should be for lower paid people. It shouldn't be for the higher paid people. So you can do things that target, ameliorate, mitigate the downturn.

ROSE: Does that make you like a deficit hawk?

DIMON: I would be a deficit hawk at this point, yes.