Two former Treasury secretaries from Democratic and Republican administrations on Sunday disagreed over the path Congress should take in negotiating the so-called fiscal cliff.
Robert Rubin, who served under President Bill Clinton, agreed with President Obama, suggesting that raising rates was the most effective solution in the long term.
"If we're going have the effective deficit reduction program we had before, and if you take the position that we shouldn't increase taxes on the middle-income people and you had a reasonable balance between tax cuts and revenues, I think most of this is going to have to come from increasing rates in the top two brackets," he said on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS.
Paul O'Neill, who served under President George W. Bush, took a different angle, saying the Obama administration should focus more on tax revenues. However, to get there, O'Neill said the president should explain the tax code to the American people in a better way.
"I think he shouldn't focus at all on the Republicans. I think he ought to focus on the American people," O'Neil said on the same show. "This is a restart opportunity for President Obama and an opportunity for him to educate the people and lead us in the direction we need to go."